This year, on account of the severe cold weather in the spring, and the heavy, long, continuous rains, the crop will be a short one; but new vineyards are multiplying, and, if this year does not promise so well as the last, yet, from the increased number of cultivators, there must be a continually increasing yield of wine, as there certainly is a constantly increasing demand for it.

In comparing these wines with those of Europe, we must bear in mind that they are distinct in flavor from any or all of them. Sparkling Catawba is not Champagne, nor can Isabella be compared with any other wine known in the world. It is a peculiarity of these wines, that no spurious compound can be made to imitate them, and in purity and delicacy, there is no no known wine to equal them. From the experiments made by eminent chemists, we find the per centage of alcohol ranks thus, according to Brande, and others:

Thus, it will be seen, that the most expensive wine in Europe, the "Tokay," is also the lowest in alcoholic per centage. But, we find, by the analysis of our good friend Dr. Chilton, that "Still Catawba," shows a per centage of 9.50 only, being, in fact, the lowest per centage of spirit to be found in any wine in the world.

One more fact in passing. By the Patent Office Report for the year 1853, it is stated that the value of American wines exceeds that of the Tobacco crop.

This is surprising, indeed. But statistics are always surprising.

We could pursue this subject for a page or two more, but the wine tide is at ebb in the bottle. We did intend to speak of the late Col. Alden Spooner, formerly editor, in fact first editor, of the Long Island Star; a man of many virtues, and one who was zealous in introducing the grape in the Empire State. We did intend to speak of a gentleman of Ohio, Mr. Robert Buchanan, to whom we are indebted for much information on this subject. We did intend to speak of other eminent vine-growers, including our own Dr. R. T. Underhill, of Croton Point, but there is a time to squeeze grapes, and a time to squeeze hands, and so, reader,-vale !

MR

RS. SPARROWGRASS and I have concluded to try it once more: we are going to give the country another chance. After all, birds in the spring are lovely. First, come little snow-birds, avant-courriers of the feathered army; then, blue-birds, in national uniforms, just graduated, perhaps, from the ornithological corps of cadets, with high honors in the topographical class; then follows a detachinent of flying artillery -swallows; sand-martens, sappers and miners, begin their mines and countermines under the sandy parapets; then cedar birds, in trim jackets faced with yellow,-aha, dragoons! And then the great rank and file of infantry, robins, wrens, sparrows, chipping birds; and lastly-the band!"

From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring The wild bird choirs-burst of the woodland band, -who mid the blossoms sing; Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall, and grand, Pillared with oaks and roofed with heaven's own hand."

There, there, that is Mario. Hear that magnificent chest note from the chesnuts! then a crescendo, falling in silenceà-plomb!

Hush! he begins again with a low, liquid, monotone, mounting by degrees and swelling into an infinitude of melody -the whole grove dilating, as it were, with the exquisite epithalamium.

Silence now, and how still!

Hush! the musical monologue begins anew; up, up, into the tree-tops it mounts, fairly lifting the leaves with its passion

almost wish that it had not been "rotted."

We are worried about our cucumbers. Mrs. S. is fond of cucumbers, so I planted enough for ten families. The more they are picked the faster they grow; and if you do not pick them they turn yellow, and look ugly. Our neighbor has plenty, too. He sent us some one morning, by way of a present. What to do with them we did not know, with so many of our own. To give them away was not polite, to throw them away was sinful, to eat them was impossible. Mrs. S. said, "save them for seed." So we did. Next day our neighbor sent us a dozen more. We thanked the messenger grimly, and took them in. Next morning,

anothor dozen came. It was getting to be a serious matter; so I rose betimes the next morning, and when my neighbor's cucumbers came, I filled his man's basket with some of my own by way of exchange. This bit of pleasantry was resented by my neighbor, who told his man to throw them to the hogs. His man told our girl, and our girl told Mrs. S., and in consequence, all intimacy between the two families has ceased; the ladies do not speak even at church.

This

We have another neighbor whose name is Bates; he keeps cows. year our gate has been fixed; but my young peach trees, near the fences, are accessible from the road; and Bates's cows walk along that road morning and evening. The sound of a cow bell is pleasant in the twilight. Sometimes, after dark, we hear the mysterious curfew tolling along the road, and then, with a louder peal, it stops before the fence, and again tolls itself off in the distance. The result is, my peach trees are as bare as bean-poles. One day, I saw Mr. Bates walking along, and I hailed him: " Bates, those are your cows there, I believe." "Yes, sir,-nice ones ain't they?" "Yes," I replied, "they are nice ones. Do you see that tree there?" and I pointed to a thrifty peach, with about as many leaves as an exploded sky-rocket. "Yes, sir." "Well, Bates, that red-and-white cow of yours, yonder, eat the top off that tree; I saw her do it." Then I thought I had made Bates ashamed of himself, and had wounded his feelings, perhaps too much. I was afraid he would offer me money for the tree, which I made up my mind to decline at once. "Sparrowgrass,' said he, "It don't hurt a tree a single mossel to chaw it, ef it's a young tree.

For my part, I'd rather have my young trees chawed than not. I think it makes 'em grow a leetle better. I can't do it with mine, but you can, because you can wait to have good trees, and the only way to have good trees is to have 'em chawed."

I think Mrs. Sparrowgrass is much improved by living in the country. The air has done her good. The roses again bloom in her cheeks, as well as freckles, big as butter cups. When I come home in the evening from town, and see her with a dress of white dimity, set off by a dark silk apron, with tasfeful pockets, and a little fly-away cap on the back of her head, she does look bewitching. "My dear," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, one evening at tea, "what am I?”

The question took me at an unguarded moment, and I almost answered, "A beauty;" but we had company, so I said, with a blush, "a female, I believe."

66

nonsense;

Nonsense," she replied, with a toss of the "know-nothing" cap; 66 I mean this;-when I was in Philadelphia I was a Philadelphian; when in New York, a New Yorker; now we live in Yonkers, and what am I?"

"That," said I, "is a question more easily asked than answered. Now, Yonker,' in its primary significance, means the eldest son, the heir of the estate, and 'Yonker's' is used in the possessive sense, meaning 'the Yonker's,' or the heir's estate. If, for instance, you were the owner of the town, you might with propriety be called the Yonkeress."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she would as soon be called a tigress!

"Take," said I, "the names of the places on the Hudson, and your sex makes no difference in regard to the designation you would derive from a locality. If, for instance, you lived at Spuyten Devil, you would be called a Spuyten Deviller!"

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said nothing would tempt her to live at Spuyten Devil.

Then," I continued, "there is Tullitudlem-you'd be a Tillietudlemer."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said, that in her present frame of mind she didn't think she would submit to it.

"At Sing Sing, you would be a Sing Singer; at Sleepy Hollow, a Sleepy Hollower."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said this was worse than any of the others.

"At Nyack, a Nyackian; at Dobb's Ferry, a Dobb's Ferryer.".

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said that any per

son who would call her a "Dobb's Ferryer," was destitute of a proper sense of respect.

"You might be a Weehawkite, a Carmansvillan, a Tubby Hooker."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass, quite warm and indignant, denied it.

"A Tarrytownian-a Riverdalean."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she thought a village on the tip-top of a hill could not be called River-dale with any show of

reason.

"A Simpson's Pointer-a Fordhammer."

"A what?"

"A Ford-hammer."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she thought at first I was getting profane. 66 But," she added, "you do not answer my question. I live at Yonkers, and what am I?"

"That," said I, "Mrs. Sparrowgrass is a question I cannot answer, but I will make it a public matter through the pages of Putnam."

What is the proper local or geogra phical appellation by which an inhabitant of Yonkers should be known?"

YOU

YOU have walked backwards and forwards in Broadway, said I to myself, one fine May day, until your head is full of bricks, and your heart no better than one of its paving stones. Away! You have in your pocket a complimentary ticket, which will make every railway conductor between New York and the Mississippi take off his hat to you; and from Rock Island you shall be steamed up the graceful windings of the upper Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, scot free, and found in claret. There you shall stand exulting by the side of the Laughing Waters, and look out upon that sea of prairies, which rolls its waves even to the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

How

It

This homily produced its desired effect. The very next morning I took my seat in the train for Dunkirk, consoling myself, at leaving the dear city, with a large supply of the morning papers. But at the sight of the very first green field, I opened the window and threw out my newspapers. could he have had the the heart to say it?" All green fields are alike, sir; let us take a walk down Fleet street." was because he was a great writer of prose, and no poet, the London-loving Dr. Samuel Johnson. But let lexicographers and cockneys go melancholy at the sight of green fields--not I. The ploughshare in the greensward, the hand of the sower scattering seed, the springing corn, the budding clover, the promises of the spring ready on every hand to burst into the flowers of summer-these rural sights broke up the fountains of my heart, as if its rock had

been smitten by the rod of an angel from heaven. The very first full-blown orchard brought the whole troup of my youthful feelings rushing back. As the butterfly feels, when the bands of the chrysalis are broken, and its bespangled wings are, for the first time, spread to the sun, so did I seem to rise into a higher life as the flying train left the city and its cares behind, and conveyed me into the heart of the country and of nature.

It is an exhilarating sensation when the burden of accustomed cares is unloosed from the back, and one sets out, at least one friend in company, on a journey to places far off, and never before visited. The commencement of the Voyage to sea, is no doubt the most stirring. The weighing of the anchor, the spreading of canvas, the graceful dropping down the tide, the standing out to sea, until native land is lost to the sight. Who can ever forget his first launch upon this illimitable ocean? The start by stage-coach, too, in the days of those social vehicles, was an event which sent a pleasing thrill to the heart. The sounding call of the coachman's horn, as he approached your dwelling, followed by the rattling of the coming wheels, the salutations of fellow travellers as you took your seat, the smart dashing down the court yard, with cracking whip and leaders prancing, while you waved farewells out of the window, to the little group left behind-these are among the poetical recollections of the past. Then, there was the go-off in the old family coach,

its pockets well stuffed with the little necessaries and comforts of travel, its seats delightfully piled up with coats and shawls, and books and presents for your cousins, and the iron-bound ancestral trunk, well fastened on behind; the pride of Cuffy as he took in hand the ribbons; the pleased curiosity of domestics gathered around to witness the departure; the last words with friends, repeated o'er and o'er again-this was one of the gently heart-touching occasions of the olden time. But the new fashioned way of setting off by railis there no poetry in that? Yes. The thought that in a few brief hours, you, who are leaving the ocean side, will stand on the shores of our great inland seas, and will look out upon the level horizon of the prairies, and will drink the waters of the Mississippi-this, too, has in it the element of sentiment. feeling of mastering the powers of nature, and yoking them to your chariot wheels, of annihilating distance and filling a very brief span of time with the sight of scenes and prospects innumerable, gives a sense of wings to the mind, and realizes the old fable of the flying feet of the messenger of the gods.

The

How pleasantly did I feel this, as the train swept through the picturesque valleys of the Delaware and the Susquehanna! My eyes, which had become dulled by the city, brick, and brown stone, were enamored of the landscape. The winding rivers and sloping hills, the cultivated vales and the far-reaching forests were beautiful as enchantinent. Half a century hence, there will be no sweeter spots in the Tyrol, than in these mountains. When the fields, now rough with the remains of the original forests, shall be smoothed to lawns; when the woods shall only tuft here and there the hill-tops, or be confined in parks, or left to stretch in vistas to the distant horizon; when vine-draped villas shall overlook the river reaches, and farm cottages shall nestle in every nook of these low mountain ranges, the landscapes will vie in beauty with those most praised by the lyres of Wordsworth or of Scott. Wise is that young pater-familias and founder of a long line of posterity, who betimes, selects the site for his villa in one of these vales. It is but a few hours from New York; and before the end of the day and generation that now is, the lovers of rural beauty will be attracted to these graceful slopes and commanding hill-tops. The social life which now

graces the banks of the Hudson, will also soon enliven and beautify those of the scarcely less picturesque Delaware and Susquehanna. For myself, I have already a chateau in that Spain.

But

On arriving at Hornellsville, I observed that Apollo was just in the act of pulling up his studs on the horizon; and I resolved, imitating his example, to let my own axles cool until morning. I had done about as good a day's work as the god himself, having placed some three or four hundred miles between me and the smell of salt water. Pleased at so great a result, at the cost of so little personal exertion, I good-naturedly allowed myself to be carried off by a big Sambo, with the name of some now forgotten hotel on his hat band, and who was the only representative at Hornellsville of that interesting class of fellow-citizens, who usually stand at the railway stations to welcome the traveller to the hospitalities of their respective lodging-houses. Sambo was a good-natured fellow himself, and a fat one; but he promised more than he could perform. His beds were clean, and his supper hot as he asseverated. when promise came to performance, there was a sad falling off. It took as much financiering on my part, to extract a pair of clean sheets from Sambo's mistress, as would have sufficed to "lift a fancy" in Wall street. As the traveller leaves the seaboard, his bed-linen becomes more and more suspicious, until in the very far West it is found in such a condition, that any allusion to it is taken by the host as a personal insult. "Captain, can't you give me a clean towel?" inquired a passenger recently on board a Mississippi steamer. "Go to h-, stranger. Fifty people have used that towl, and you are the first man I have heard complain of it." So any faultfinding with respect to sheets, would be followed instantly by the request for you to seek lodgings elsewhere. However, this happens on the other side of the Mississippi, not at Hornellsville. As for supper, at this place, happy is the traveller who can make a meal on roasted potatoes. They are good at Hornellsville, as both my morning and evening experience enables me to testify. They are so good that I would advise the traveller to eat nothing else there. And surely a large mealy potato should suffice to stop the mouth of complaint anywhere. It has kept many a poor Pat from starvation, and may do the