90 
SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK.— No. 2 . 
perior soil for grass ; they yet yield very heavy 
;rops of small grain. As an evidence of this, 
although the season of ’45 was very unfavorable to 
oats, we here saw a lot which turned out 50 bushels 
K) the acre. Since acquiring possession of this place, 
ten years since, Mr. D. has doubled the crops; and 
diough he has occasionally used alluvial mud {limed) 
U'om the Sawkill, as a topdressing, and also plaster 
and ashes, and applied guano and poudrette to the 
noed crops, with satisfactory results ; yet his main 
reliance for keeping up the fertility of his place, 
has been the barnyard. To this place all weeds, 
fallen leaves, butts of cornstalks, and offal of the 
farm, are gathered, and through these the wash of 
the barnyard leaches. We think Mr. D. has gone 
through unnecessary trouble and expense in plow¬ 
ing in manure on the slopes and banks to get them 
into grass, instead of pasturing South-down sheep, 
which might easily be done in hurdles. The 
growth of the sheep would in a single season de¬ 
fray the expense of the arrangement, and the sod 
would be left by them, topdressed and fertilized in 
the simplest and most efficient manner. We have 
often seen flocks of sheep pastured for this purpose 
on the lawns of the finest estates in England. 
The farm-buildings are judiciously placed near 
the centre of the land, and well constructed for 
sheltering the cattle and saving the manure. The 
boundary walls are well laid, and the expense and 
unsightliness of cross-fences have been greatly 
avoided by soiling most of the cattle. 
In stock Mr. D. has confined his attention to 
rearing a herd of milch cows, having wkh consi¬ 
derable care and expense selected the best milkers 
among the native cows that he could purchase, 
which, with one or two Ayrshires, he has crossed 
with his imported bull, Prince Albert, a noble Dur¬ 
ham selected for him with much judgment, by his 
brother, Mr. James Donaldson of this city, when 
in England in ’41. Among the cows there is a most 
extraordinary animal, called Kaatskill, from her na¬ 
tive mountains. She shows a dash of Holderness 
blood in her veins, though she is supposed to be a 
native. We conversed with her former owner, 
Mr. Hendricks of Red Hook, who assured us, that 
this cow had, while in his possession, given 38 
quarts of milk per day, on grass-feed alone; and 
had made 18 1-2 lbs. butter in one week. On two 
of the days the butter weighed 6 1-2 lbs., and had 
not a spell of unusually hot weather ensued, which 
prevented her from feeding well, she would doubt¬ 
less have made 22 lbs. of butter in a single week. 
This cow received the first prize of the New York 
State Ag. Society, at their annual show of 1844, 
as the best dairy cow exhibited. 
We could say much more of Blithewood; but 
should any of our readers chance to visit it, they 
will feel how inadequate words are to convey an 
idea of its varied scenes, some of which are worthy 
the pencil of Ruysdael or Claude. 
Stucco .—We thought the Stucco used by Mr. D. 
in his buildings of a superior kind, and copied his 
recipe for making it. Take pure beach sand, and 
add as much Thomaston lime as it will take up, 
then sufficient hydraulic cement to make it set, say 
about one-fifth of the whole mixture of sand and 
lime. To prevent the cement attracting moisture, 
put a strip of sheet lead or zinc as wide as the 
foundation of the building over it, then lay up tha 
walls. The walls should be hollov:, as they are 
stronger than solid walls, and they save nearly one- 
third of the brick. The finishing plaster can then 
be laid on inside without the expense of furrowing 
out and lathing, as hollow walls are always dry. 
The stucco is also more lasting and not likely to 
peel. The stucco can be painted a handsome fawn 
color by dissolving burnt ochre in sweet milk. 
We saw here a most useful labor-saving machine, 
first introduced at Mr. William B. Astor’s villa, for 
cleaning gravel walks. With this, a man, a boy, 
and a horse, may do the work of twenty men. 
We here annex an engraving of it. It is veiy sim¬ 
ple in its construction, and costs about $10. 
Machine for cleaning Gravel Walks.— Fig. 27. 
Mr. Downing has kindly permitted us to make 
casts of the illustrations above, from the cuts exe¬ 
cuted for his “ Landscape Gardening and Rural 
Architecture,” a work which we cannot too highly 
and too often recommend to the public. 
SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK.—No. 2. 
The Cherokee Rose Hedge. —South of Natchez, 
for miles, I rode between continuous lines of hedges 
of the “ Cherokee, or nondescript rose,” then, 
March 1 st, in full bloom, of pure white fragrant 
flowers, single, with bright yellow centres, and rich 
bright green foliage, that gave the whole a most 
lovely appearance ; but the beauty of the scene was 
greatly marred by the fact that blossoms and foliage 
could not disguise that the whole was in a most 
slovenly state of keeping; for the long straggling 
runners have grown up some ten feet high, and 
bend over upon each side, till the fence is often 25 
or 30 feet wide, and owing to the hardness and 
sharpness of the briars, is as impenetrable as a stone 
wall for all kinds of stock, negroes included. 
Dr. Phillips and Mr. Affleck, who were my tra¬ 
velling companions, assured me that a good fence 
could be made in four years from the cuttings of 
this plant, and that by proper attention every year, 
it can be kept within reasonable bounds. I did not, 
however, see an instance "where it was. I saw 
many places where the runners had climbed up 
some convenient tree at least thirty feet. 
To get a fence started is a very easy matter, as R 
is only to take those long runners and cut them up 
with a hatchet on a block, into slips about a foot 
long, and lay these in a furrow, with one end out. 
