HISTORICAL NOTICES. 
43 
shady bowers, and rustic seats, all most agreeably combined, 
render this a very interesting and instructive suburban seat. 
In New-Jersey, the grounds of the Count de Survilliers, 
at Bordentown, are very extensive ; and although the surface 
is mostly flat, it has been well varied by extensive plan- 
tations. At Mount Holly, about twenty miles from Camden, 
is Mr. Dunn’s unique, semi-oriental cottage, with a con- 
siderable extent of pleasure ground, newly planted, after the 
designs of Mr. Notman. (Pig. 8.) 
About Philadelphia there are several very interesting seats 
on the banks of the Delaware, and Schuylkill, and the 
district between these two rivers. 
The country seat of Geo. Sheaff, Esq., one of the most 
remarkable in Pennsylvania, in many respects, is twelve 
miles north of Philadelphia. The house is a large and 
respectable mansion of stone, surrounded by pleasure-grounds 
and plantations of fine evergreen and deciduous trees. The 
conspicuous ornament of the grounds, however, is a mag- 
nificent white oak, of enormous size, whose wide stretching 
branches, and grand head, give an air of dignity to the whole 
place. (Fig. 9.) Among the sylvan features here, most in- 
teresting, are also the handsome evergreens, chiefly Balsam 
or Balm of Gilead firs, some of which are now much 
higher than the mansion. These trees were planted by Mr. 
Sheaff twenty-two years ago, and were then so small, that they 
were brought by him from Philadelphia, at various times, in 
his carriage — a circumstance highly encouraging to despair- 
ing planters, when we reflect how comparatively slow grow- 
ing is this tree. This whole estate is a striking example of 
science, skill and taste, applied to a country seat, and there are 
few in the Union, taken as a whole, superiour to it.* 
* The farm is 300 acres in extent, and, in the time of De Witt Clinton, was pro- 
nounced by him the model farm of the United States. At the present time we 
