will be five dollars by water. I believe land carriage is now about six dollars per hundred weight from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The ice was very thick in Lake Erie.

3 To Millar's ferry along the bank of the lake. If it be no object to call at Buffaloe, there is a road turning to the right, about two miles from Buffaloe, which leads directly to the ferry, and saves that distance. The stone that bounds the river here is a mass of black chert. I arrived about twelve o'clock, but the ice was so thick in the river Niagara that it was impassable till three. There were three wagons of emigrants waiting to cross to the British side from Shoharie in Newyork state, and Buffaloe in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania; they. were chiefly Germans. They expected two hundred acres of land to cost them about fifty dollars; I understand the British government sells it at forty dollars per two hundred acres. The American emigrants to Canada generally complain, as I heard, of the violence of party politics in Newyork state and in Pennsylvania. The taxes in Canada are very light, but unequal. The crossing here is three-fourths of a mile over; price half a dollar for man and horse. They catch abundance of fish in the spring with a seine. The family were dining on pickerell and salmon trout, each about four pounds weight.

15 To Chippeway: a house every three or four hundred yards all the way. An excellent road through good land. Chippeway contains about ten houses. There are two good taverns, one kept by Stevens, the other by Fanning. Stevens being the nearest and the newest I stopt there. They are of equal repute. Each has a new part connected with the old building, and each has eight windows in front. The diningroom at Stevens's is twenty feet by thirty, carpetted. The attendance good, and the people civil. For a pint of tolerable Teneriffe, a gill of rum, supper, breakfast, bed, and feed for my horse, I paid only thirteen shillings and six pence York money. There had been a handsome bridge over the Chippeway, but the middle part was broken down, and they now ferry across. On the opposite side to the taverns, is a fort with a lieutenant's guard. The waters of Chippeway are dark coloured owing to its running for near

thirty miles through a swamp. Mr. Ellicot told me that forty miles up the river there was gypsum in abundance, as he had been informed. He also mentioned two places near the mouth of Chippeway, in the river, whence issued bubbles of inflammable air in considerable quantity, which might be fired by putting a small keg over the place with the bottom and top out, and one end immersed in the water. But my landlord, Stevens, could give me no information; nor would he take the trouble of giving me any particular directions as to the proper means of seeing the falls to the best advantage. "They are by the road side, you cannot miss them."

(To be continued.)

HORTICULTURAL.

In the progress of Taste, Elegance and Luxury, the art of gardening particularly in Pennsylvania and the sister state of New Jersey is cultivated more sedulously than the ignorance and prejudice of foreigners can conceive, or concede. Not merely the kitchen garden, but the flower garden claims much of the regard, both of the laborious and the opulent classes. In the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia there are many delightful gardens, which a VIRGIL would not disdain to describe, and in whose bowers a Lyttleton might desire to dwell. Of the Shenstones of Society, who prefer the Leasowes to London itself, the following hints will reward the attention.

EDITOR.

On the cultivation of common Flax, Linum usitatissimum of Liné, as an ornamental plant in the flower garden, by Mr. John Dunbar, gardener to Thomas Fairfax, Esq.

(From Transactions of the Horticultural Society.)

The Horticultural society will perhaps honour with their attention a short paper, the object of which is to bring into cultivation, the common flax, as an ornament of the flower garden, not merely as such, but with a view to the profit it will afford, at least to the servant, if not to the master; and the interest of the former can

seldom be promoted in an honest way, without some benefit accruing to the latter. This plant, when so cultivated, like wax and honey, forms part of the natural riches of a country, and if it could supplant the cumbersome yellow lupine in our flower borders, the annual revenue arising from it would amount to several thousand pounds.

If gardening were in its infant state among us, a complete treatise on the culture of this plant might be necessary; but as this is not the case, only what is especially material will be noticed, with some directions how to prepare the plant after it is gathered. They are the result of several years' experience, by which a family, consisting of five persons, has been supplied with all the linen they required.

The soil of every flower garden is always rich enough to produce good flax; but if it is loamy rather than sandy, the quantity will be nearly double: even in the fields, which can never be cultivated with the nicety of a gentleman's garden, I have observed the greatest crops in a loamy soil, and that they yielded an article superior in quality as well as quantity: for as the durability of the fibre depends in some measure upon its size, there can be no doubt that tall and vigorous plants are preferable to small

ones.

There are various ways of disposing this plant so as to be exceedingly ornamental, but none more so than scattering it in random parcels, or little clumps of from ten to twenty plants, towards the back of the flower borders and in the front of the shrubbery: for, without the summer proves uncommonly dry, it will attain to the height of three or four feet. If a temporary edging or summer screen is wanting for any particular bed, it may be also employed for this purpose.

The seeds of good flax are short, plump, thick, very oily and of a light brown colour. The best season for sowing them in most gardens is February, or the beginning of March, when the general crop of hardy annuals are put in : but if the ground be sandy and naturally dry, they should be sown in October or November. No more attention than what is necessary for the other flowers in the garden, which is keeping down all weeds while in the seed

leaf with a hoe will be requisite for this. As soon as the seed begins to ripen and the plants turn yellow, pull the whole up by the roots and lay it in bundles exposed to the full sun, if the weather is fine, to dry completely. Then pull the heads off and shake out the seeds. Immediately after, it must be laid to macerate in a ditch or pond of water, and kept under by a long piece of timber floating upon it. From five to ten days is the time necessary for its immersion, and after the fifth, it must be examined daily, taking especial care that it does not lie too long. As soon as ever you find the fibres are sufficiently macerated to separate from one another kindly, spread it out to dry upon a new mown meadow. When dry it must be again collected into bundles and either sent to the flax dresser, or prepared for spinning at home by the gardener's wife.

In many districts, this operation is well understood, and if carefully performed, homespun linen from such flax will last twice the time of most of the Irish linen that is now to be purchased in our shops.

I believe it is a great error to pull the flax so green as is commonly practised, and a still greater to soak it in water before it is previously dried: for the fibres require twice the time to macerate sufficiently for separation in the dressing; a process by which they are considerably weakened.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

THE BEEHIVE-No. I.

Sic vos-mellificates apes.

I send you the first number of a series of desultory papers, which, if you think them likely to amuse or instruct any of your readers, I request you will publish. Otherwise you may employ them for the harmless purpose of lighting your cigars.

Phila. June 9, 1810.

A CONSTANT READER.

Universal peace in the realms of literature.

In a free country, like ours, where party passions too fre quently reign uncontrolled, and sometimes extend their baneful influence into the very pulpit, in which, to preach "peace and good will to all men," even " those that hate and persecute us," is the paramount duty of the sacred functionary, any effort to circumscribe their sway-to screen from it the retreats of lite. rature as a sanctum sanctorum-must call forth the warmest plaudits of every liberal man, whatever may be his political feelings and opinions.

Strongly impressed with this idea, the reader may readily conceive how grateful to my mind was the perusal of the annexed dignified introduction to a criticism upon Adams's Lectures on Eloquence, which I met with in the Monthly Anthology for last April. The writer, whose politics are diametrically opposite to those of Mr. Adams, is nobly superior to the contemptible meanness of being influenced by this consideration in pronouncing sentence upon that gentleman's recent work, on which he bestows his most unqualified approbation:

"We should esteem ourselves altogether unworthy the honour to which we aspire, of being numbered among the friends of literature, if we could for a moment suffer our judgment of the claims of a man of letters to be influenced by any feelings of polîtical antipathy. It is the delight and charm of literature, that it affords us a refuge from the tumults and contentions of active