100 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
they go seaward for food, and return with dark¬ 
ness to spend the night on the islands. They 
are of various kinds, pelicans, penguin, many 
of the duck species, &c. Seals and sea-lions 
are seen in thousands sporting among the rocks 
and ships and basking in the sun. Methinks I 
hear you say, what a place for gunning, and 
you will no doubt be surprised when I tell you 
I have not discharged my gun since I sailed 
from New-York. The laws here are very rigid, 
not a gun or pistol is allowed to be fired on or 
around the islands or on board ship at all. A 
penalty is exacted for every bird killed; this 
has caused much trouble here, of which I will 
inform you by and by, still parties go on shore 
nights and rob the holes of their inmates, gene¬ 
rally two birds, something like our mackarel 
gulls. They are said to eat very well but 
rather fishy. We find eggs at times in abund¬ 
ance, yet these we are not allowed to touch. 
The laws are strictly enforced, not even the 
seals or sea-lions are we allowed to shoot, but I 
am hard tempted at times. I sometimes use 
my harpoon as they swim around the ship, but 
when fast it is impossible to hold on, as look¬ 
outs are stationed all' around, and scarcely a 
day passes without trouble in some quarter. 
Every vessel that comes here has a certain 
number of lay days, about ten days for every 
one hundred tuns. Most of us have to lay here 
our days out. At daylight dozens of boats can 
be seen around the spouts waiting for loads. 
Daily accounts are kept of each ship’s days and 
turns, so many loads per day are allowed them, 
say first week two loads per day, second week 
three loads per day, third week four loads per 
day. We are all supplied with boats. They 
hold from ten to twenty tons, and are generally 
ship's long boats, sold to the Peruvians when 
they leave for home. Laborers cannot now be 
hired here at any price; we can only work our 
own men. One would imagine that it would be 
impossible to exist in the clouds of dust. The 
men are all of one color; you can not tell a white 
one from a black one when at work in it. It is 
fun for our sailors. As a general thing, I never 
saw a set of men more interested for their em¬ 
ployers than they are in loading our boats. 
They lay in it, roll and wrestle, and at times 
are completely buried in it. These shutes that 
lead into the vessels hold are dangerous. Cases 
have occurred where they have slipped in at 
the mouth of the hose as the guano went in or 
down, and never seen again, or dead if found at 
all. At times when there is much surf on, I 
have seen the hose come out of the hatch and 
the guano go thirty feet from the side of the 
vessel the bigness of the hose. We are sup¬ 
plied twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday, 
from Pisco city with fresh meat, vegetables and 
fruits, by boatmen who make quite a business 
of it. Fresh beef eight and a half cents :per 
pound, fowls $10 per dozen, turkeys $24 per 
dozen, pigs weighing twenty pounds, $3 ; sheep 
$4 each. Vegetables are high, enough for one 
week’s consumption for a crew of fifteen, say 
$2, Every thing in way of provision is high. 
In our American licet we have six ladies, 
cuptain’s wives; they visit each other often, and 
almost daily they are together on board of some 
ship. We have plenty of time to row around 
the islands and see what there is to be seen. 
We are all very neighborly and help each other 
in all our troubles. If a ship is to‘ be moored, 
boats with men from other ships are always 
ready and willing to help. It only has to be 
made known that help is wanted and they are 
soon on board. I never saw as many vessels 
together at anchor or otherwise, where so much 
good feeling and harmony prevailed as here. 
When a ship is loading and cannot spare her 
own men to go in the boats, if the captain 
wishes to go on board any vessel, or ashore, the 
ships that are not loading, send their men to 
pull him wherever he wants to go. I am to-day 
loading and cannot spare a man; Capt. L., of 
Newport, R. I., has sent his boat to take me on 
board the ship B., bound out and home. She 
will have six or eight captains with their crews 
to help him olf. The other day when that ship 
dragged afoul of me, it was about sunrise when 
he began to strike, and at 7 o’clock he had six 
boats with anchors and men to haul him off; 
and thus we work for each other. No pay is 
expected, only good will. If any trouble oc¬ 
curs on board ship, a signal is hoisted, and 
there will soon be plenty of help on board of 
her. My boy George, (six years old,) is the 
only child in the fleet. The captains are many of 
them often after him; he is visiting around 
from ship to ship about one half the time. 
Jonx R. Congdon, Bark Hannah Thornton. 
Landscape Gardening, or Parks and Pleasure- 
Grounds ; with practical notes on Country Resi¬ 
dences, Villas, Public Parks and Gardens. By 
Charles H. J. Smith, landscape gardener, garden 
architect, itc. With notes and additions by 
Lewis P. Allen, author of Rural Architecture, 
<fcc. C. M. Saxton, agricultural book publisher, 
152 Fulton street, New-York. Pages, 367. Price 
$1.25. 
The original work of Mr. Smith, is the very 
best, for one within a moderate compass, we have 
yet seen on landscape gardening, and we have 
been an indefatigable student of this art for 
many years. The author seems to combine in 
happy proportion, nearly all the requisites ne¬ 
cessary to produce a work of this kind—good 
common sense, nice discrimination, fine taste, a 
quick eye for the beauties of nature, and con¬ 
siderable experience in his profession ; added to 
these his style for the subject, is almost per¬ 
fect—condensed, clear, simple, with a warmth 
approaching to eloquence, whenever the subject 
allows it. What Mr. Allen has added to this 
excellent work of Mr. Smith’s, to make it more 
acceptable to the American landscape gardener, 
we leave him to tell in his own modest preface. 
It may appear superfluous to reedit, in the 
United States, a work of the kind now pre¬ 
sented to the reader; particularly if it be one 
of competent authority on the subjects of which 
it professes to treat. In answer to this sug¬ 
gestion it may be remarked, that scarce any 
European treatise on the management of 
grounds, the vegetation belonging to them, or 
the structures to be erected on them, can, in 
every thing, be applicable here. Our climates 
and soils; our trees, shrubs and plants; our 
habits and tastes, all differ in various degrees 
from those of Europe, and Europeans, to which 
and to whom we have hitherto chiefly looked 
for example and authority in matters of this 
kind. 
Parks and Pleasure-grounds are a part of the 
Institutions of Great Britain. Parks came into 
England with William the Conqueror. Among 
his first acts of oppression and injustice, he laid 
waste of its homes, its villages, cottages, and 
cultivated fields, one of the richest counties, to 
form a vast forest and hunting-ground, for the 
recreation of himself and his retainers. His 
noblemen followed the royal example, and a 
great part of England was parceled out into 
wide domains—the spoils of the conquered 
Saxons — and appropriated to themselves, in 
ranges of park and cultivated lands. Hunting 
was their pastime—war, agriculture, and legisla¬ 
tion their employment. Through succeeding 
centuries, becoming more refined and domestic 
in their pursuits, they studied the improvement 
and cultivation of their estates; and, retaining 
their attachment to the soil, which they held by 
hereditary title, the planting and preservation 
of their trees, and the decoration of their gar¬ 
dens, became with them a passion, as well as a 
duty. It is so with their descendants in the 
present day. It has become a national taste in 
England, and has spread into Scotland and Ire¬ 
land, until no country in the world can equal 
Great Britain in the luxuriance and beauty— 
the costliness and splendor—the extent and the 
wealth of her parks and pleasure-grounds. 
Few, indeed, can indulge in such extent of lux¬ 
ury as the parks of the aristocracy display; yet 
the taste for rural embellishment extends among 
all classes of the people, from the royal mistress 
of Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral, to the 
humble cottager upon his meager allotment by 
the hedge-row. 
It is not so in America. We have broad 
lands, and a passion for lands ; but not a pas¬ 
sion to improve and embellish them for domes¬ 
tic occupation, as they have in England. Yet 
we are learning this, and we wish to learn more. 
Our taste is improving. We are encouraging- 
skillful amd ingenious men, who are aiding us 
in forming our tastes, by their writings and 
their labors. We require practical . treatises, 
adapted to our own country. Foreign books 
are not sufficient for us. Good, many of them 
are—suggestive in many things, and instructive 
in others. The work here presented has ap¬ 
peared to the undersigned better suited to the 
American inquirer than any other which has 
issued from a foreign press. It is plainly, un- 
ambitiously, sensibly written, and by a thor¬ 
oughly practical man. It will do much to 
instruct us in the subjects on which it dis¬ 
courses, and with suitable notes appended, may, 
perhaps, be more useful to the American reader 
than without them. Such notes have been at¬ 
tempted by the undersigned—whether accept¬ 
able, or not, is submitted to the reader. 
Owing to the increased wealth and intelligence 
among the rural population, and the great de¬ 
sire on the part of rich citizens to make for 
themselves tasteful and agreeable homes in the 
country during the summer season, consider¬ 
able attention is now paid to landscape garden¬ 
ing in the United States. Downing was the 
first author of any consideration among us, to 
issue a professed treatise on this beautiful—and 
we may justly add—highly useful art, though our 
novelists, poets, and essayists had done much in 
an individual way as pioneers. Irving and Wil¬ 
lis especially, in their various works, we should 
say, have had quite as great, if not a greater 
influence in awakening the American mind to the 
beauties of nature, and drawing attention to 
parks and gardens, and embellishing country 
scenes, than Downing. This any one will ac¬ 
knowledge who is at all familiar with their ex¬ 
quisite descriptions of such things abroad, and 
suggestions of improvements in these parti¬ 
culars at home. 
Better studies for parks and landscape gar¬ 
dens do not exist, than are to he found on the 
prairies of the great West, along the broad val¬ 
leys of our rivers, and up the sides and on the 
summits of our picturesque hills, and no less 
beautiful and lofty mountains. As we have 
not—and hope we never shall have in Amer¬ 
ica —the great individual wealth of the princes 
and noblemen of Europe, our national state 
and city governments, and above all, intelligent 
individual associations, must be looked to to 
supply the place of this wealth; and their 
efforts properly directed, may ultimately accom¬ 
plish for this country, what has long since been 
done and is still doing for Europe. The great 
and wealthy city of New-York, with her large 
surface, has at length appropriated about seven 
hundred acres for a new park, and has now an op¬ 
portunity of setting an admirable example to the 
American public. Let us hope that it will not 
be made a scandalous affair, but that the laying 
it out and planting, may be entrusted to one 
properly qualified to create something which 
shall he found worthy as a general model for all 
the other cities of the Union; for whether 
good, bad, or indifferent, it will be sure to find 
imitators. W e can see that parks and gardens 
are destined, in a few } r ears, to be quite the rage 
throughout the country; and it is a o'age to be 
commended and desired, however small the 
taste and skill which may be exercised in putting 
