•250 



Tin-: cARni:y]:R\s moxiiilv 



{_Au^ust, 



IS, perhaps, the cojiscionsnoss of this fact, 

 whicli ill llif ]>ri(lo of thai kiiowlrdm- iimkcs s<> 

 many Ami'rican.s ovci-do thtir work, ami Ixtohu' 

 so imu'li the slave to their oeeii|ialioii, that in 

 -another sense they do not live at all. 



Havini: hrwikfasted at Williainsport, I took 

 notes of my fellow-travelers. Here are the 

 usual set. who " took the Northern Central route 

 to enjoy the nia«:nilieent seenery, you know," 

 Imsily encaszed in a diseussion ahout public 

 atlairs at AVashin<rton, and for all the beauty, 

 niitrht as well have been blind. I should not 

 like to have to be a witness before their friends 

 ^s to how much beauty they saw I Then there 

 was the novel reader, the devourer of the police 

 news, the resjular daily paper scanner, the usual 

 proportion of pillowed heads, and the inevitable 

 couple just on a bridal tour, and whom I always 

 forszive for not finding anythinf;: more lovely and 

 beautiful outside of the Pullman coach than they 

 can see within. 



But the book I love to read, when I travel, is 

 not in any library, so I eagerly scan its broad 

 pages while I may. 



How strange is the waking up in the morning 

 among these cloud-capped hills ! Down where 

 I live, near the level of the sea, the Spring vio- 

 lets had scarcely gone; but here the Golden Rod, 

 the special favorites of Autumn, were already in 

 blossom. Summer was, however, still lingering 

 as we could see by the gorgeous masses of ""^Vood 

 Laurel," Kalmia latifolia, which, b3'-the-way,are 

 only "Wood " Laurels. At places lower down, 

 the little seeds, fine as dust, would never make 

 a successful sprout in the open ground of a 

 sunny plain, so they have to take to the woods 

 to get even a taste of the pleasures of life ; but 

 here in the mountain mists they take to the naked 

 exposed rocks anfl open places, and those who 

 have seen them onl}' in the shelter of some 

 friendly wood can have no idea of their magni- 

 ficence as seen up here. I shall never forget the 

 impression made on me once in the past, when 

 awakening from my bed of branches in a deep 

 cleft on a high mountahi, I saw the rising sun 

 Tetlected from a snow-cap in the long distance. 

 I have seen nothing since that recalled this pleas- 

 ure so vividly as these Kalmia-covercd moun- 

 tain tops, with their rosy morning hue. Then 

 here and thei-e were bushes of the Red-berried 

 Elder, with fruit as if made into bunches out of 

 Red Currants, and the beautiful Howering bram- 

 ble. Rubus odoratus, and many other handsome 

 native flowers, which if I were writing now as 



an editor, and was answering the question why 



liusc pniiy lliingsare not in our pretty gardens, 

 I shdiild iiave to say " we do not know." 



And there are jjretty gardens among these 

 hills too. I was parlit'iilarly struck on this 

 little trip, more so than 1 was ever before, that 

 till' houses of our farmers, and the surroundings 

 of the poorer classes, are not so fiorally destitute 

 as we have been in the habit of regarding them. 

 Over and over again have I heard the great ad- 

 miration expressed for the Roses and Honey- 

 suckles of English cottages, and the regret that 

 our own are not like iheni. But they are; and 

 a ride over the Northern Central will prove it. 

 I cannot say that the walls of the buildings are 

 covered, as the Europeans are. The dwellings 

 are not as nicely embowered in blooming foliage, 

 nor are the window-sills filled with pot plants 

 from ground-floor to attic — our climate is scarcely 

 suited to this sort of thing — but the hardy gar- 

 den flowers, and more especially the care for 

 fruit trees and trees for shade, and shrubs for 

 flowers, were fully as wisely planted around 

 these humble dwellings as they are elsewhere. 

 Was it always so in these wild, out-of-the-way 

 parts of our country ? I think not. I believe 

 it is a progressive growth, and I could not but 

 think the much-abused "tree peddler" had some 

 hand in this progress. He has his black sheep 

 in the flock — and we strongly suspect in his 

 dealings with customers he is not much better 

 than other men — but there can be no denying 

 that he has carried a love for tree-planting, and 

 a taste for flowers into many a hundred out-of- 

 the-way places that the ordinary stream of trade 

 would have never reached. The fruits especially 

 were a sight to see ; the cherries particularly. I 

 never saw trees so loaded, and strikingly so in 

 the vicinity of Elmira. 



But I must say a few words of Rochester. 

 The Nurserymen's Meeting is of the National 

 Organization which meets once a year to discuss 

 matters of interest to the business. It was a sur- 

 prise to me to find so many of the best men in 

 the trade there. What might be regarded as 

 " crooked sticks " were extremel}' scarce among 

 them ; and the whole discussion turned on how 

 the public might be protected against fraud, and 

 how all that is right and proper as between the ' 

 buyer and seller should be advanced. Of course 

 they wanted to know how to make money out of 

 their trade; but 1 never met a body of men 

 where the desire that the great public should 

 get the full worth of all they bought was so 



