236 
farm and villa of..mr. king.—the alpaca.—no. 3—flax machine. 
preferred, in order to give the machine the ability 
to throw up water to more than ten times the 
height of the fall, a difference which would not 
often occur. Whether a fall of 70 feet instead of 7 
would have thrown up the same relative quantity 
of water 420 feet, is a question we confess we are 
not able to solve. 
The pipe, E, it is found, must be 30 or 40 feet 
long, or the valve, G, will not work; almost all 
the water ran out of it, when the water cask was 
put directly over the ram. The. valve made 50 ; 
strokes in a minute. It is not necessary to have ! 
the pipe E a perfectly straight one, but it may be bent 
to suit the inequalities of the ground, and may even 
be bent at right angles, as shown in the sketch at K. ; 
FARM AND VILLA OF MR. KING. 
High-Wood, the residence of James Gore King, 
Esq., is situated on the west bank of the Hudson, 
about two miles above Hoboken. The estate con¬ 
tains 100 acres, nearly half of which is under 
tillage. The residue is in ornamental grounds, 
more wild and beautiful than one can imagine, who 
has not visited them. The cliffs of dark trap-rock 
crowned with a great variety of forest shrubs, and 
trees, laved by the wafers of the river, rise per¬ 
pendicularly 180 feet above the Hudson. The 
house stands still 20 feet higher, and commands the 
finest possible views of the city of New York, the 
bay, and the adjacent country. 
Notwithstanding the coldness of the soil, and its 
thick studding of rocks, High-Wood was originally 
covered with a great variety of trees. Whatever 
of these were necessary to give beauty to the place, 
Mr. King has retained, and with much good taste 
planted out others indigenous and exotic, thus form¬ 
ing one of the best arboretums we know in the 
United States. In addition to these, on many of 
the cleared spots, he is cultivating fruit trees exten¬ 
sively. Among these we found at least fifty 
choice varieties of pears, and other fruits in propor¬ 
tion ; besides several hundred peach trees, all of 
which seemed to be doing well. He is now trying 
the experiment of cultivating the Black Hamburg 
and other European grapes in the open air, by plac¬ 
ing the glass frames of his hot beds over them, as 
soon as they can be dispensed within the spring, as 
coverings for the vegetables. The range of green¬ 
houses is extensive, and well filled with fruits and 
plants. Insects have seldom proved injurious to the 
trees here, in consequence of the birds being strictly 
guarded from destruction and annoyance of every 
kind. The crows, even, are so tame that they build 
their nests and rear their young, near the house. 
They destroy immense numbers of insects. 
Few would have the hardihood to undertake the 
culture of the table land of High-Wood; but as 
Mr. King does not spare his means, and is 
gifted with no small share of perseverance, he has 
at length succeeded in subduing his stubborn soil, 
after thorough under-draining, and now makes it 
produce large crops of grain, roots, and grass. 
We thought the wheat particularly good. The pro¬ 
cess of improving his land, and gathering together 
the means of fertilizing it, are well worthy of 
record, and when the experiments are complete, we 
shall endeavor to get the particulars of them for the 
benefit of our readers. 
The buildings at High-Wood are ample and con¬ 
venient The house is of stone, and of chaste 
architecture. Mr. King has one of the best private 
libraries in our country. It contains nearly 4,000 
volumes, and was principally a gift of a relative—■ 
the late Gov. Gore, of Massachusetts—to whom it 
formerly belonged—and whose name Mr. K, bears. 
THE ALPACA.—No. 3. 
Description, Habits, Food, fyc. —The Alpaca,, 
when fully grown, is about 37 inches high to the 
shoulders, and 59 inches to the top of the head. It 
possesses many properties in common with the 
llama—-belongs, as we have shown, to the same- 
natural family, to the same country, possessing a 
similar disposition and manners, and bears much 
resemblance in figure, hut is smaller in stature. Its 
legs are shorter, with larger muscles, and its wool 
finer, and more abundant; but it is less robust in its 
habit, being able to carry a continuous burden of 
only 50 to 70 pounds. 
In a wild state, it is never known to associate 
with any other animal, but keeps together in herds 
of 100 or more in number, feeding, through choice, 
on a sort of rushy grass or reed, called yd to, which 
grows in abundance on its native hills, where, it is 
said, these animals are neve? known to drink, so 
long as a sufficiency of green, succulent herbage, 
can be obtained. They resort to a particular spot 
to drop their dung, which greatly resembles that of 
the goat, the sheep, or of the giraffe, and which 
often proves fatal to them, from betraying their 
haunts. When domesticated,, they possess the 
same gregarious habits, and are strongly attached 
to their birth-place, to which they return at night, 
evincing little or no inclination to stray away, or to 
mix with other flocks. They are gentle, docile, 
and contented in their dispositions, and are as rea¬ 
dily restrained as the common sheep, with which, it 
is said, they perfectly agree. They adapt them¬ 
selves to almost any soil or situation, as we have 
already shown, provided the heat is not oppressive, 
and the air is pure. They will live and thrive on 
the same sorts of food as eaten by cattle and sheep ; 
but the inferior kinds of browse, grass, or hay, 
' with a due proportion of potatoes, or other succu¬ 
lent roots, are preferred to rich pasture and farina¬ 
ceous grains. Too liberal an allowance of rich and 
;stimulating food to an animal extremely abste¬ 
mious, and habituated to live on coarse and light 
herbage, and that in small quantities, cannot be re¬ 
garded otherwise than injurious. 
Flax Machine. —We can give no additional in¬ 
formation to the numerous inquiries addressed us in 
regard to this machine, other than is to be found on 
page 331 of our last volume. We understood the 
owner of it to say, when here last fall, that he 
w r ould furnish us with a cut and complete descrip¬ 
tion of it; but as he has not yet done so, we must 
refer our readers to Mr. George W. Billings, of St.. 
Louis, Missouri, who can doubtless inform them ail 
about it. If the inventors of agricultural imple¬ 
ments cannot see it for their interest to furnish 
drawings and descriptions of them for a journal 
which has many thousand subscribers, and exer¬ 
cises no inconsiderable influence in the community, 
why then it is their affair, not ours, and we shall 
not hereafter trouble ourselves about their matters 
