The weather during our stay at Cincinnati was so wet that, with the exception of a drive which Mr. Anderson took us to some little distance on the heights above, and a long visit which we paid to the school under Mr. King's auspices, we had little out-door work to occupy us. I once, however, and papa twice, crossed the Ohio in a steamboat, and took a walk in the opposite slave state of Kentucky. The view thence of the town and its fleet of steamboats is very striking. The opposite hills, with the observatory perched on the highest summit, were very fine. Mr. Anderson one day took us a long drive to the top of these hills; the whole country, especially near a village called Clifton, about six miles from the town, is studded with villas. We drove through the grounds of two which overlooked splendid views of the neighbouring country; each of them being situated at the end of a sort of natural terrace projecting into the valley, and thus commanding a panoramic view all round. The grounds attached to these villas are of considerable extent, but nothing has surprised us more than the poverty of the gardens in America. It may, however, be accounted for by the difficulty and expense of obtaining labour in this country, and by the consequent facility with which men who show any talent, and are really industrious, can advance themselves. A scientific gardener, therefore, if any such there be, would not long remain in that capacity. One of the houses had a really fine-looking conservatory attached to it, but, like others we have seen in the course of our travels, it was almost entirely given up to rockery and ferns. This is a degree better than when the owners indulge in statuary. We were made by the driver on another occasion to stop at a garden ornamented in this way, but certainly Hiram Power's talents had not been called into request, and the statues were of the most common-place order. It is not only in their gardens, however, but in the general ornamental cultivation of their grounds, that the Americans are deficient, for even at Newport, where we greatly admired, as I think I mentioned, the greenness of the grass, it was coarse in quality, and bore no sort of resemblance to a well-trimmed English lawn. Nor have we ever seen any fruit, with the exception of their apples, to compare to ours in England. These are certainly very fine. I hardly know the weight of an English apple, but at Columbus we got some which were brought from the borders of Lake Erie which are called the twenty-ounce apple. The one we ate weighed about sixteen ounces, and measured thirteen inches round. They are said to weigh sometimes as much as twenty-seven ounces. It is what they call a "fall," meaning an autumnal, apple.[11]