Vol. XLIY. No. 1826 . NEW YORK, JANUARY 24 , 1885 . 
[Entered according- to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by the Rural New-Yorker In the olRce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
PRICE FT YE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
AN ENGLISH COUNTRY MANSION. 
he illustration below shows 
one of the substantial, spa¬ 
cious, and magnificent country 
homes of the English aristoc¬ 
racy. It is Muntham Court, 
the property of the Marchion¬ 
ess of Bath, near Worthing, in 
the county of Sussex. 
In England the country man¬ 
sions of the nobility and gentry are on their es¬ 
tates, surrounded by broad, wooded parks, and 
vine-clad walls give to a house, be it a cottage 
or a palace, and how easy vines are to possess, 
adapted for the purpose, and grateful for the 
little care they need and get! And they grow 
as freely by the farmer’s house or squatter’s 
hut as by the ducal castle or baronial ball. 
Our Summer’s sun defies the somber-ivied 
walls that Europeans venerate, and Winter’s 
frost the fragrant myrtle which they pin in 
ivy-fashion to their dwellings. But our honey¬ 
suckles are just as sweet and copious as theirs; 
our Trumpet-Vines are by far more showy; 
our wistaria climbs as high and blooms as 
gay; the akebia lives unprotected, and flowers 
and fruits around our doors; it does not do so 
much with them; the Pipe-Vine and Virginia- 
Creeper vie in vigor. Ths Silk-Vine runs or 
in fact, uncommonly so. The square cut, 
wall-like edgings of the flower beds and also 
the solid scrolls are made of Dwarf Box, and 
the tier upon tier bushes, so perfect in form, 
likewise the sugar loat'-like pyramids within 
the circular bed at the left hand comer, are 
Tree Box cut into shape. The semispherical 
standard tree so perfect and so round, is, ap¬ 
parently, a Portugal Laurel, a handsome ever¬ 
green much used in shrubberies and topiary 
work there; but unfitted for the climate here. 
The many-arched hedge beside the mansion, 
is of English Yew 13 feet high. Here both 
the Dwarf and Tree Box are commonly found 
in gardens, but they cannot be depended on 
with certainty; sometimes they die out in whole 
or part, and Tree Box especially is much sub¬ 
courage the introduction of this style among us. 
It is severely mechanical,even ridiculous, and 
entirely void of the charming influence of a 
garden filled with pretty plants arranged in 
beds or borders, nooks or plants, as most be¬ 
fits their individual wants, and shows them 
looking their best. Such a garden cannot be 
made in one year, or yet in twenty. A year’s 
neglect would mar it sadly; a gap by acci¬ 
dent could not easily be mended; a blemish 
auvwhere would raze the equilibrium of the 
whole affair. Besides, we have passed the 
age of gravel gardens. What flower beds we 
may want to-day we cut out in the grass—a 
more becoming way by far thau tracing 
on a graveled square a series of beds of 
odd, fantastic forms, and edging them with 
■lAi n.-jki' 
VIEWS AT MUNTHAM COURT. (Re-engraved From the Gardener’s Chronicle.) Fig. 81. 
extensive lawns and gardens, and are usually 
styled Castle, Hall, Abbey, Priory, Lodge, 
House, Manor, Court, Towers, or Park; for 
instance, Arundel Castle [the seat of the Duke 
of Norfolk), Homerleyton Hall (I July Crossley), 
Welbeck Abbey (Duke of Portland), Bentley 
Priory (Sir J. Kelk), Burford Lodge (Sir 
Trevor Lawrence), Sandringham House 
[Prince of Wales), Drayton Mauor [Sir Robert 
Peel), Tort worth Court (Earl Ducie), Alton 
Towers (Earl Shrewsbury), and Sefton Park 
(Lord Lennox), 
The mansion represented in our picture 
speaks for itself. What a cosy, homey look 
climbs wherever it gets a chance,and the clema¬ 
tises blossom quite as showily Our evergreen 
magnolia of the South, the pyracantha that 
we use as hedges in the West, the Carolina 
All-spice, and some others of our native trees 
and shrubs, full of nature’s grace, they spread 
flat against and tack to the walls, as they 
would a clematis or Prairie Rose. Azara, 
escallonia, Japan quince, ceauothuses, and 
other exotics, many of them not quite hardy- 
bore, they also use vine-fashion against the 
sides and gables of theur houses. 
The flower garden, as seen in our picture, 
is rigidly geometrical and excessively formal • 
ject to red spider in Summer. The English 
Yew is not reliably hardy north of Philadel¬ 
phia; occasionally, under favorable circum¬ 
stances, it seems quite at home among us; but ! 
it is not an evergreen to be depeuded on. Ob¬ 
serve how flat upon the top the hedges and 
edgings are. Were we to clip our hedges iu 
that way,the winter snows would spread them 
right and left, subvert the austere form we 
meant them to retain, and render strings and 
sticks a dire necessity. 
Notwithstanding the cunning handiwork and 
nicety of execution shown in the garden be 
fore us, we would deprecate rather than en- 
box or Moss Pink, Perennial Candytuft or 
Thrift. 
(Jl)c tjcviJsmuu. 
THE CATTLE BUSINESS IN IOWA. 
PROF. S. A. KNAPP. 
Within a short time several companies 
have incorporated under the laws of Iowa for 
the purpose of conducting the cattle business 
upon a large scale. Some of the members of 
