As one must leave the concert and the ball to see the charm of domestic life and society, and to view the hallowing influence of woman's devotion at the bedside of the sick and the dying,.so we must desert the highways of travel to enjoy, or even to know of the many delightful retreats, the ornate mansions and grounds, which have grown up during our late periods of prosperity in most parts of the Union, where as much of the paradise with which man began his career is reestablished as his fallen nature will permit. It has been our good fortune to revisit many such favored spots of late, and to discover new beauties and additions created by the hand of taste.

Wodenethe', the seat of Henry Winthrop Sargent, Esq., near Fishkill Landing, Dutchess County, N. Y., was out point d'appui for the region of the North River. The railroad which scours the borders of this American Rhine affords opportunity for excursions, above and below, of such facility that you make engagements for a dinner party sixty miles off, if you choose, even months beforehand, with as much certainty of meeting at the hour named as we formerly felt in crossing a street Mr. Sargent is "perfectly at home in all this region, and we found his arrangements for the enjoyment of our little horticultural party perfect; every day brought its new and delightful scenes, we must say, unrivalled for beauty, ready prepared for the enjoyment of elegant leisure.

Wodenethe is Mr. Sargent's own creation. Prepared by foreign travel and residence in the finest parts of Europe, and with a native taste for rural life, Mr. Sargent procured a spot of extraordinary beauty, nearly opposite to Newburgh, and began his operations of building ana planting about the same period, or a year or 80 later, with Downing; their friendship was such as poets sing, and dramatists attempt to portray. Mr. Downing's leisure moments were never more thoroughly enjoyed than when pacing with his host around the new grounds, suggesting an effect here, an opening vista through yonder lofty grove, or advising about the hothouses and graperies, their contents and government. These scenes we well remember; their recollection is a bright spot in the wastes of life.

When Wodenethe was purchased in 1841, the ground, as its name indicates, was finely wooded.* White oaks threw their giant arms about, and the wild blackberry was the only edible fruit. Mr. Sargent has made it "a wilderness of beauty;" it blossoms with the rose; the foreign evergreens dispute their sway with the old forest, which has been very gradually yielding its inferior specimens to more ornate native or foreign foliage. Mr. Sargent is, by general consent, our "tree-taster," as Mr. Beeves, of spiraea memory, was tea-taster to the East India Company, with the difference that Mr. Sargent administers only to our mental enjoyment His evergreens are specimen trees, collected at great cost and labor from every region; this was attended, of course, with a thousand failures, but these are not now apparent; all that you see is in perfection. Those portions not hardy have disappeared, and are replaced by more constant friends. The place is a model of landscape gardening; shrubs and trees appear just where they are wanted; the lawn is a carpet of exquisitely kept verdure, mowed every week or ten days with Shank's lawn-mower, an improvement on the English machine, made by Mr. Sargent's neighbor, H. N. Swift, an ingenious mechanic, whose inventive talents have introduced him to a large business in this manufacture.

We have seen many of his machines in use in various places, and are free to say that we saw but one lawn, that under the care of Mr. Chorlton, on Staten Island, that was perfect without Mr. Swift's invention. The machines are of three sizes; that for one horse cuts a width of thirty inches; the pony size twenty-four inches; that drawn by two men sixteen inches; and one which a single man draws, and which is used to cut narrow borders, verges, and among and around . shrubbery and clumps, has a width of thirteen inches. It cuts, picks up the grass in a box, and rolls the surface at the same operation, and saves an incredible amount of labor. At Wodenethe, the entire lawn, between two and three acres, is cut, gathered up, and rolled in one day, between seven in the morning and sundown; cut, too, in a way that no mower could cut and gather, and which could not be done unless swept, as in England; since, the lawn being' cut once a Week, the grass rarely is over half an inch to one inch long, and, of course, could not be lifted up by the ordinary lawn-rake. The largest size (horse) machine is used here, with one boy to ride the horse, another to guide the machine.. This same lawn formerly occupied two men nine days, not mowing between ten and four.

At Wodenethe you encounter beautiful specimen trees at every turn. Among the deciduous kind that struek us most for their novelty and beauty were the cut-leaved and fern-leaved beeches, the former six feet and the latter ten feet in height. These truly ornamental trees should be placed in every plantation, as also the cut-leaved horse-chestnut, cut-leaved ash, and cut-leaved linden, all of which at Wodenethe, being planted near each other, form a curious and interesting group.

Mr. Sargent has also produced another pleasing effect by grouping the weeping beech, weeping ash, weeping birch, weeping mountain-ash, weeping cherry, the weeping sophora, the weeping linden, and the weeping larch, the latter a very fine specimen, twelve or fourteen feet high, and a new beautiful weeping thorn.

As an evidence of the taste which governs the minutest improvement here, we insert a picturesque gate, from a design by Mr. Sargent's father, an amateur painter of great merit, whose beautiful productions adorn the wails of Wodenethe mansion, together with many rare specimens and statuary from European masters.

* Wodenethe being composed of two Saxon words - woden, ethe, woody promontory.