30 



THE NEW GENESEE FARMER, 



Vol 



Sketches of Travel. 



Newport, 72. I,, July ] . 



Here we are at A. C. M's. delightful cottage. For 

 me to attempt to describe the measure of my comforts 

 and pleasurable sensations here, would be labor 

 lost. I have been within liigher and more massive 

 walls, where the decorations of man's invention 

 spoke more worldly splendor; but here, in the midst 

 of Nature's magnificence, there is in union with it, 

 in this house, a chastened simplicity and neatness 

 of arrangement truly admirable. Our unprctend. 

 ing hogless is one of those intellectual females who 

 regulates her mansion with noiseless efficiency. If 

 her rules partake of the self-denying discipline of 

 that society, in which she is a "bright and shining 

 light," even the more worldly of her inmates are too 

 well bred to wish to infringe them. 



But who can, in this delightful spot, desire the 

 sound of factitious merriment, the gross amuse. 

 mcnt of mere sense ? Sufficient for me was the 

 all-subduing influence of Nature's charms. Every 

 morning at day dawn, 1 opened my chamber win- 

 dows and set ajar the blind to look out upon the old 

 shingled wind mill, Brindlcy's little pond and old 

 rope walk, the narrow-walled lanes and neat little 

 fields, whore I had so often played in my boyish 

 days. The deep continuous roar of the breakers 

 on Easton's beacli, was now more audible than at 

 any other hour. I fell that this same reverbera- 

 ting roar was the music of my boyhood — forty years 

 had neither impaired its freshness nor its power. 

 " States fall — arts fade; 

 But Nature doth not die." 



At the close of this day, while sitting in the 

 front piazza of thi« delightful cottage, looking down 

 upon the quiet town below, and the resplendant bay 

 and islands beyond, I saw some half a dozen chai. 

 ses, accompanied by two or three modern buggies, 

 roturning from a ride of pleasure on the island and 

 over its beautiful beaches. Each vehicle held a lo- 

 ver and his mate, as if mystified by the tender pas- 

 sion, or perhaps orvly vrith feelings imbued with the 

 power of Nature's more roagnificent attractions, the 

 whip cracked not, and the horses trotted lazily along. 

 How different is all this in Western New York. 

 There our young people bundle into one or more 

 large carriages or carryalls, drawn by two or four of 

 the fastest trotters. Jehu like they drive — all is life 

 and noise and non.«nse — putting the horses to the 

 top of their speed, as if to annihilate time and 

 space to the manifest jeopardy of life and limb. — 

 This, said I to my wife, speaks the difference be. 

 tween the Yankee and the New York character. 

 The one is economical, even in his pleasures ; the 

 other loves stronger excitement, he even carries his 

 enterprising spirit into his amusements. 



Sunday morning, went to Friend's meeting. This 

 venerable house, with all its accompaniments, re. 

 minded me of other days, save the absence of those 

 hoary heads which now " were not." Here was no 

 longer a D. B. or C. R. on the high seat ; no T. R. 

 with his full bottomed whig below ; no G. W, with 

 his huge ivory headed cane, on the high scat in the 

 wing. This huge wing was also razed, and gave a 

 concession to the republican feelings of these after 

 times ; but the same ponderous oaken beams support- 

 ed the quaint looking roof, the attic and the galle- 

 ries. This unity of strength and plainness, a work 

 of the 17th century, carried a sentiment of rever- 

 ence with it. 



I have sometimes heard apparently thinking men 

 complain of the irksomeness of the hour spent in 

 the silence of a Quaker meeting. I can only say, 

 let such an individual take up his cross for this sin- 

 gle hour. If he is poor, let him take to himself the 



rich promises of that Gospel, which was in the be- 

 ginning preached, first of all to the poor. If he is 

 rich, let him employ this brief hour in examining 

 his own heart, to the end that he may not incur the 

 penalty pronounced against the rich man, hardened 

 in sin and selfishness. 



In the afternoon, we went to old Trinity. The 

 congregation large, fashionable, attentive. The 

 evening service was read by the venerable Dr. W., 

 with a pathos and unction suited to the holy purposes 

 of its office. What eontrile heart will say that 

 these forms of glowing picly, framed by the saints 

 of old, are a "killing letter?" If such an one 

 there be, may he be compelled to listen a full hour 

 to the dull sermon of a man who has no reverence, 

 no spiritual nature in him. * * 



The subsoil of R. Island is dark clay, but unlike 

 the clayey regions of the West, it is here intermixed 

 with stone and gravel, and so compact as to be very 

 difficult to excavate. On the surface small boulders 

 of slate, flint, and granite, abound. The upper stra- 

 tum is also relieved by sand or gravel. At the 

 North end of the Island, below the schistous forma- 

 lions, anthracite coal is found ; but it is more fria- 

 ble, and of course less valuable, than the anthra- 

 cites of Pennsylvania. The pri don>inant lock is 

 coarse gray wacke slate : it bouniJs the head lands 

 at the South part of the Island, forming with its 

 thick annual coat of rock weed, an impenetrable 

 barrier to the ocean's increasing surge. Also at the 

 South part of the Island, there are valuable quarries 

 of building atone, and some few ledges of irregular 

 granite, too full of seams for such uses. I know of 

 but one ledge of lime rock, and this is principally 

 under water at high tide. It is coarse in texture, 

 and nearly white ; bearing little rcscjnblance to our 

 own deep blue fine grained carboniferous variety. 

 But if Nature has furnished us of the West with 

 her more fertilizing fossils, limestone and plaster, 

 here she dispenses her blessings in ano her 3hape,with 

 no niggard hand. Here the everlasting ocean not 

 only yields its vast shoals of the oily munhadcn fish to 

 the net of the fisher, but every eastern gale drives to 

 land an endless variety of marine vegetables and 

 shells, in such abundance as to furnish both lime and 

 vegetable matter to the grateful soil. 



Indian corn, rye, oats, and barley, are the princi- 

 pal grains grown on the Island. It is said that in 

 an early day wheat grew wi 11 on the opposite Is- 

 land, Conanicut. Hence its present failure may 

 not altogether be attributed to the influence of the 

 sea fogs. Grass seemed to me, at this time, July 1, 

 to be the most promising crop. Such Timothy 

 (Phleum pratense,) now in full bloom, I rarely ever 

 saw in the dry, hot, champaign West. The Locust, 

 (Robinia pseud.acacia,) together with many other 

 ornamental trees, do not thrive well on the Island. 

 The Buttonwood (Platanus oceidcntalis) is the only 

 ornamental tree which seems to thrive gracefully 

 here. Perhaps the pure damp sea air is quite as con. 

 genial to it, as the mephilic vapours of the Western 

 creek and river bottoms. S. W. 



Gardening for Ladies. 



The occompnnying amusing and instructive obser- 

 vations are token from an excellent article in the 

 Gardener's Magazine, entitled "Instructions in Gar- 

 dening for Ladies," by Mrs. Loudon; — 



To derive the fnllest enjoyments from a love of 

 flowers, it is absolutely necessary to do something to- 

 wards their culture with their own hands. Labor is 

 at the root of all enjoyment. The fine lady who has 

 a nosegay put upon her table every morning by her 

 gardener, has not a tenth of the enjoyment from it 

 that the lady has who has sown the seeds, or stuck the 

 cuttings, and watered and shifted, or transplanted, pru- 

 ned and tied up, or pegged down or thinned out the 

 plants, and ot lost gathered the flowers heraelf. But 



we would have ladies of leisure do a great deni "' ' 

 than this. Let them hoe, and rake, and dij 

 wheel a barrow, nnd prune and nail wall trees, Ifctn'i 

 a syringe, and work one of Read's garden engii 

 By these, and similar operations, they will i 

 health, without which there eon neither be gooi 

 per, nor any kind of enjoyment whatever, men|»(i 

 corporeal. The grand and all pervading evil a 

 ladies of independent fortune, K tnnui, which 

 body knows, is brought on from a Want of rationi 

 active operation. Now the pursuits of boton; 

 gardening supply an occupation which is at 

 rat'onal and active; and they supply it not .«Biot*i 

 to the lady who has merely a love of flowers- /, 

 out a scientific knowledge of botany or a tasti '*^ . 

 the arts of design, and who may, therefore cu! 

 her flowers, and perform her garden operations, 

 out a greater exertion of mind than is reqnired t; 

 gardener's labor; but to the scientific lady, whoi 

 tanical knowledge, like ihnt of the scientific gard 

 may enable her to raise many kinds of flowers, i 

 and culinary vegetables, by the different process 

 quired for that purpose; and to the lady of arti 

 taste in drawing, painting and sculinure, who 

 direct her attention to landscape gardening, and 

 espccioUy, to the designing of flower gardens, nnf |jtbe 

 introduction in them of the various kinds of 

 menls of which they ore susceptible; a subject 

 sent as much in its infancy as botany was befoi 

 time of Linn;En8. Bat, says some of our re| 

 ' What, the Duchess of wheeling a bi 



iJjtaJf 

 liiileil" 



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 ijiit,- 



i, itoplj 

 win 



Int. 



and nailing wall trees'?" Yes, certainly, if 

 nothing else to do, that will be an occupation ei 

 active and rational. Whv not a Duchess oe welj 

 plain mistress 1 Suppose this Duchess at work 

 garden, and that you are not awar* ihtrt abe 

 title-. Suppose her dress in the simplest manni 

 were the Vieompte D'Ermenonville's wife and dl 

 lers in the gardens of Ermenonville,) what wi 

 would there be then ? Ladies of rank are as D 

 subject to C7?7i7/i as ladies without rank; and eve \ 

 dy, as well as every gentleman, has o portion i 

 day that she can call her own, when she may in Jw 

 in what she lilies. If she has not, her 1 ' 

 worth keeping. Did not the Earl of Chatham^ 

 withstanding his being prime-minister at a perioi 

 most important that ever occurred in the annals ( '* 

 country, find time not otsly to lay out his own gro 

 but to assist Lord Lyttleton in laying out Hagle ,(. 

 We insist upon it, therefore, that what we prop ] 

 just and suitable and necessary for ladies of the hi ) 

 rank as it is for those without rank, provided th{ S 

 equally without active and rational occupation of 

 otlier kind. 



otter 



nllii 



litil 



The following excellent communication deat I ^,j 

 an attentive perusal from every mother and da » id 

 ter in our land ; and in behalf of our fair reader! ne 

 tender Fanny many thanks. At the same tira lii; 

 think she has mistaken the rrjeaning of Anns • 'loi 

 and applies the hickory without real cause. W - ips 

 not believe that Annette meant to " attribut \\ 

 the discontent and nnhappiness of farmers' daf i y 

 ters to a mis. education, and put the blame Bai „ 

 teachers and seminaries." In the communici^'i ,|| 

 referred to, she was only speaking of a certain A ' xt 

 of daughters, not of the majority ; and we thi [„ 

 an attentive perusal of her several communicatio [; 

 will show that she does not reason altogether 

 " logical circles." — Eds. 



Fanners' Homes, Wives, and Daiightem> 



Messrs. Editors — I noticed, in your Deceni 

 number, another chapter of grievances from Annell 

 but having had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Ni 

 Year days to attend to, (which ore the climax of i 

 enjoyments in the country, ) no time was allowed 

 reply last month; and olthough I feel no disposition 

 criticise, or drive my amiable foraJaioMi from the fid 

 still I think a little sprig of hiriiory from Waiti 

 Grove, may serve to drive her from some of her 1){ 

 cal circles. 



In your July number of last year, she attributel* 

 the discontent and nnhappiness of farmers' daugh^ 

 to a mis-education, and puts all the blame upon telit 

 era nnd eeminories. Now she says that teachers w 



