42 Domestic Notices : — Scotland. 



near Oswestry, the seat of Thomas N. Parker, Esq., has this season attained 

 the size of 11| in. in circumference. — T. N. P. Sweeney Hall, Oct. 29. 1841. 



Artificial Ice for skaiting on. — This very singular invention is now ex- 

 hibiting in a room in Jenkins's Nursery, New Road, where it is every day 

 covered with skaiters, and is found to answer for that purpose as well as 

 natural ice, which it closely resembles in appearance. This artificial ice is 

 totally unaffected by ordinary heat, and may be laid down in a stove or a con- 

 servatorv, with the same success as in the free air or under an open shed. 

 Henceforth, we may anticipate a skaiting-house being an appendage to a 

 first-rate mansion, almost as essential as a riding-house. — Cond. 



The Peasantry of France and Northumberland. — "The great body of the 

 peasantry in France have no rents to pay, no landlords but themselves. 

 Compare the well-fed, well-clad, and comfortably-housed cultivators of the 

 Bocage, with the bondsmen of your boasted agricultural Northumberland, 

 herded together in the filthy bothies of the monopolisers of a thousand acres, 

 with all their breadth of corn ; where you may travel mile after mile and never 

 see a cottage, and where the labourers have not even the idea of a home, but 

 are stabled like the cattle ; and then estimate the worth of a political and agri- 

 cultural system which has no connexion with the welfare of the population." 

 (Mom. Chron., Nov. 8. 1841.) In the pamphlet entitled The Peasantry of 

 the Border, by W. S. Gilly, D.D., and reviewed in p. 31., the author observes : 

 " Suppose 70/. to be the average cost of a substantial good cottage, will the 

 comfort of a faithful dependant and his family be heavily bought at this 

 price ? Why is the happiness of rural life to be nothing more than a 

 romance, a poetical image, when it is in the power of so many land-proprietors 

 to realise all that is imagined of smiling gardens, and snug habitations, and 

 contented cottagers ? The true beauty of a landscape, as Gilpin has said in 

 his Forest Scenery, consists not ' in the mere mixture of colours and forms, 

 but in the picture of human happiness presented to our imagination and 

 affections in visible and unequivocal signs of comfort.' 



"Oh, when will the law of love be felt in its supremacy ? When will it be 

 felt that there is no security for property like the affection of those whose 

 labour is our wealth ? 



" Oftentimes when I see ornamental lodges, and pretty dairies, like fairy 

 bowers, in a cool and sequestered corner of the park — and gardeners' houses, 

 decorated without, and full of accommodation within — and dog-kennels, 

 which may be called canine palaces — and stables, like sacred temples, so 

 totally free from every pollution that you would suppose it profanation to 

 suffer a particle of filth to remain one moment on the pavement — often when 

 I see these things do I indulge the ardent hope that the time will come, when 

 the peasantry on a property will have as much taste and forethought ex- 

 pended on them, and that snug cots and happy-looking inmates will be 

 considered the chief ornaments of an estate." (The Peasantry, fyc, p. 30.) 



SCOTLAND. 



The Gardens at Williamfield, the Residence of Mrs. Fairlie. — Being at 

 Williamfield, near Symington, a few weeks ago, we observed some very fine 

 specimens of tropical plants, bearing fruit abundantly in the stoves, which reflect 

 much credit on the proprietress, Mrs. Fairlie. The laudable endeavours of this 

 lady to elevate the taste for horticulture, by leading the way in one of its 

 highest departments (the cultivation of new tropical fruits) is worthy of the 

 most honourable mention. The gardener, Mr. Alexander Malcolm, is not 

 without his share of merit also, for plants could not have been brought to such 

 a state of perfection without much care and attention on his part. 



The banana, or plantain (Musa paradisiaca), has long been known in this 

 country. It grows to the height of 20 ft., and bears its fruit at the extremity 

 of the stem. Its inconvenient height has prevented it from being cultivated to 



