AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
43 
store to store, now describing the curve of 
Wall-st., now threading Maiden-lane, then work¬ 
ing their way through Courtlandt-st., and then 
making an offing in Broadway. 
They have already arrived from almost every 
place that is a place, this side of sunset. Men 
from Chicago since breakfast yesterday morn¬ 
ing; men who sat quietly in their stores in the 
far capital of Wisconsin, a day or two ago ; men 
fresh from the laughing waters of Minnehaha, 
whose watch-word is, “Now by St. Paul the 
work goes bravely on!” Here they are, by 
railway, and steamer, and stage. Proprietors 
grow courtly and shrewd. One man they grasp 
cordially by the hand, ask affectionately after 
his wife and the bairnes he left behind him, offer 
him a cigar warranted genuine, shake out for 
him the morning paper, and make him feel more 
at home than if he were at home. Another they 
regard with a cool polite expression of inquiry. 
They really beg pardon; they don’t quite recol¬ 
lect him; countenance familiar, and all that, and 
all the while they know him better than they do 
their own grandfathers. The first comer is a 
good customer; he pays cash; he always pays. 
The other is a little, just a very little doubtful, 
and the secret of is out in a twinkling. 
The regiments of clerks take their cue with 
amazing aptness from the file-dealers. They 
have the grave politeness for the doubtful, the 
early spring smile for the fair, and the real, 
warm, genial welcome for the “A No. 1,” while 
to the decidedly impracticable, they are abso¬ 
lutely breathless with excuses, and give him, in 
declining, a better opinion of himself than he 
ever had in his life. 
Selling goods is an art, but accosting men is a 
science ; and nobody understands it better than 
the New-York merchant. And vet shrewd as 
lie is, keen as his eye is to the main chance, it is 
doubtless due to the natural generosity of his 
heart that he more frequently errs on the side 
of “a generous confidence” than the opposite. 
And what a stupendous system of commercial 
enterprise does the dealings of the wholesale 
merchant reveal! Here he is, in some dark 
narrow street, with his front of twenty-five or 
thirty feet, his cellars beneath and his lofts 
above. There he sits behind a little railing at 
his desk. His alphabet of ledgers are duly 
marshaled before him. His customers do not 
live over the way, nor round the corner; they 
do not come in a one-horse wagon, bringing a 
grist and the children; they dwell any where 
within two thousand miles ; they speak all lan¬ 
guages in the Babel-cleft world; the lengthened 
train comes thundering down to the Atlantic 
sea-board, not with one customer, but a hundred; 
they live every where between the sea and the 
big river; they crossed that on the ice or by the 
ferries; they heard the tramp of the buffalo a 
month ago ; they parted in their canoes the rice 
swamps of the Lake Superior regions; they 
rode over a prairie graved into the blue heaven. 
And here they all are in the counting-house 
of the New-York merchant. They are his cus¬ 
tomers ; their names have a place in his books; 
he knows more about them than he does about 
his immediate neighbors; his eyes and his mind 
are telescopic; he sees things a great way off; 
he buys on one side of the world and finds his 
purchasers on the other ; he examines silks and 
teas in the Celestial Empire ; handles laces in 
India ; tests coffee in “Araby the blest;” and is 
here in New-York all the while. He eats, 
drinks, and sleeps, as other men do, where he is 
himself; but he sees, thinks, operates around 
the belted globe. They may rib Broadway with 
a railroad track ; they may start a new line of 
omnibuses from his very door — but he does 
not see it; but let a new steamer navigate a 
river in South America, a new railway be con¬ 
structed in Iowa, and he regards it with interest. 
It may let somebody out from some where that 
will turn into a customer; it may bring him 
something to buy, or carry away for him some¬ 
thing to sell. 
Such is a rough sketch, done in chalk, of the 
New-York Merchant. 
BONE FELON. 
A subscriber of Catslcill, N Y., writes as fol¬ 
lows : 
Seeing in two January numbers of your val¬ 
uable Agriculturist remedies for bone felon, and 
strictures upon the same, I will give you my 
remedy, which is as follows: Take equal parts 
of soft-soap and lime, (not quicksilver,) and ap¬ 
ply it in a thimble to a felon and it will cure it, 
and no mistake. Soak the part affected—to 
soften—and then take unslacked lime, pounded 
fine, and soft-soap put into a top thimble, and 
place it directly over the seat of pain, and in 
from two to four hours it will eat a hole to the 
bone and take the matter (or pus) out—then 
put on any common salve, to prevent taking 
cold in it, and to heal (?) the slight wound, and 
the next day you are well. The pain while un¬ 
der the operation of the soap and lime, is not 
severe. 
I have applied this successfully to my own 
fingers at three different times, and I know of 
many other cases. One severe one was cured 
in twenty-four hours. 
We doubt not the above would in most cases 
destroy the felon, but the medicine would be 
almost as bad as the cure. We think any com¬ 
mon poultice to soften the flesh being first ap¬ 
plied for a few hours, and then an opening made 
down to the bone with a lancet or sharp knife, 
is the safest and simplest method, as the small 
opening thus made, will soon heal up. 
- « *-• - 
COTTON IN ALGERIA. 
Professor Michel Chevalier occupies four 
and a half columns of the Journal des Debats , 
with a very sensible and instructive essay on 
the question of the culture of cotton in Algeria, 
respecting which so much has been written 
within the two months past, for the Moniteur 
and the other ministerial organs. M. Chevalier 
recites the various bounties and other encour¬ 
agements of the culture, granted zealously by 
the government. The Emperor set the exam¬ 
ple, in appropriating from his civil list the sum 
of a hundred thousand francs, to be distributed 
in premiums to the colonists who should be 
most successful in raising cotton. M. Chevalier 
is of opinion that the growth of wheat and other 
cereals, can be but a secondary object; the 
Arabs alone will be able to send a certain quan¬ 
tity to market. Nor can cattle and sheep be 
furnished by the European colonists. The olive 
tree might be exceedingly productive; unhap¬ 
pily, the terrible war has devastated, if not ut¬ 
terly destroyed, the greater part of the orchards. 
The mulberry flourishes, and fine specimens of 
silk are displayed; but adequate production is 
an affair of a long tract of time. Cochineal cer¬ 
tainly succeeds; in this, too, time—a long time— 
is required. The tobacco plant has given satis¬ 
factory results; the quality, however, is not 
suited for cigars. The tobacco culture is already 
organized on a large scale. The Regie purchases 
a considerable quantity. Many annual millions 
of pounds are calculated on ; American compe¬ 
tition, indeed, is not to be easily overcome. 
Cotton is among the latest of the colonial under¬ 
takings ; many good judges pronounce that it is 
destined to be the chief, the amplest product. 
All varieties thrive; the Georgia long-staple is 
the most difficult, from the peculiar soil which 
it exacts. The professor commends the partic¬ 
ular attention which the government has re¬ 
solved to pay to the culture. There may be in¬ 
terruptions, diminution—from various causes, 
of the supplies from America. France should 
aim at independence by domestic progress, that 
can be as rapid as it has been elsewhere. The 
growth in Algeria, is entirely free for all settlers. 
M. Chevalier observes: “If the government 
could prevail on some American planters to set¬ 
tle in the Mitidja, it would be much more effica¬ 
cious than any system of bounties and premi¬ 
ums. Honorable men of the enterprising race 
of the United States might be induced, more¬ 
over, to bring with them select bodies of labor¬ 
ers. Grants of land and other favors should be 
tendered .”—Journal of Commerce. 
SYDENHAM CRYSTAL PALACE GARDEN. 
This garden, without being one of the largest, 
will be one of the most beautiful in the world. 
It is situated on the side and crest of a hill, ris¬ 
ing about 200 feet above the adjacent valley, 
with a terrace 1,700 feet long and 50 feet wide, 
mounted by three gigantic flights of granite 
steps, skirting the palace of glass, and appear¬ 
ing to be the base of that magnificent structure. 
This terrace garden, below the terrace itself, will 
be richly ornamented with parterres of flowers 
and statuary, and will be bounded by a noble 
balustrade, with numerous recesses breaking the 
long line of wall that supports the terrace. 
From this garden three other flights of gigantic 
steps conduct the visitor to a lower level, on the 
outskirts of which what may be termed the pic¬ 
turesque part of the garden commences. This 
second level is in the form of a half eclipse, 
richly decorated with flower beds, on the bor¬ 
ders of graceful walks which wind through it in 
various directions, but converge at three basins 
300 feet apart, the central one, which intercepts 
the long main walk, being 200 feet in diameter, 
and the laterals, which are nearer the palace, 
100 feet each. The center basin is surrounded 
by a walk 50 feet wide, enclosed by a parapet 
wall and balustrades, with numerous recesses 
occupied by groups of statuary. Like all the 
other basins, it is to be alive with fountains and 
jets. 
Round the central basin, on the grass, below 
the wall which bounds it, are to be again dis¬ 
persed beds of flowers, forming a brilliant frame 
to the turf slope on wffiich the main walk and its 
adjuncts are elevated. The length of this half 
eclipse is about 2000 feet, and its depth rather 
more than 600 feet. It is shut in on its curved 
side by a low broken ridge covered by orna¬ 
mental trees. In this part of the grounds all 
the skill of the landscape gardener had been 
exerted to combine insensibly the most artificial 
and elaborately-ornamented ground which it is 
possible to conceive, with the picturesque irre¬ 
gularities of a park, and the rough inequalities 
of mere woodland scenery. 
Among dells and hollows, gradual elevations 
sprinkled with trees, and thickets in which deer 
might hide, fragments of forest ground, and ir¬ 
regular sheets of water, are united, in the most 
felicitous manner, hard geometrical outlines, or¬ 
namental basins, gushing fountains, sparkling 
jets, sculpture, statuary, and all that belongs to 
the most formal architectural design. Among 
the decorations of the grounds will be two 
water-temples, formed of glass and iron, each 70 
feet high, planted with creeping plants, and 
sending forth perpetual cascades, which, in their 
descent from two magnificent waterfalls, act in 
their turn, as .feeders to a beautiful lake 1000 
feet long, and 400 feet broad, dotted with mini¬ 
ature islands, and screened from the north by a 
steep, rough, closely wooded bank. On the 
shores and islands of this lake are to dispersed 
models of the extinct and singular monsters of 
the wealden and neighboring periods. 
Huge Chelonions are to bask upon the banks; 
the Plesiosaur, w r ith its reptile form and bird¬ 
like neck, is to repose in the mud; the Megalo- 
saur, the most gigantic of lizards, is to rear its 
portentous form among the rushes, and the en¬ 
ormous Iguanodon, half elephant half crocodile, 
measuring 100 feet from his snout to his tail, is 
to exhibit himself as the true prototype of the 
dragons of antiquity. The whole of this gor¬ 
geous spectacle will be visible from the galleries 
of the palace, or from a vast verandah, decorated 
with the choicest climbing plants which will ex¬ 
tend for a thousand feet along the south face of 
the building. So that be the weather what it 
may, the beauties of the garden can always be 
witnessed in comfort, The water-works within 
