242 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



each other in the Otsehc Yalley. A lovely Homer 

 stretches along the banks of the Tioughnioga, near 

 enough to shake hands with its younger but more enter- 

 prising neighbor, Cortland ; while East Homer beckons 

 to both from a neighboring hiUside. One can find 

 Dryden a few miles to the south, Ithaca and Scipio at 

 the west, and Pompey a little way at the north. 



One day in company with some old-time friends, we 

 drove over to the old homestead in Solon for a day's 

 picnic in the woods. The trees about the farm house 

 have grown almost out of recognition, but the row 

 of large maples on the hillside have all dis- 

 appeared but two, and they stand up, grand 

 but lonely in their isolation, like some aged 

 people who have survived their cotemporaries. The 

 beautiful sugar bush across the flat has been cut down, 

 and now blackened stumps and sunburnt grass are seen 

 in the place of the smooth boled beeches and towering 

 maples. On the way to the woods we passed through 

 the large orchard, in which every tree w^as familiar. 

 Although the orchard was mostly of seedlings, the fruit 

 was better than any other that we shall ever taste again. 

 Each tree had an individual history, and nearly every 

 one a name. The " Good Tree, " that ripened its apples 

 so early, was missing, but the large '' greening " next 

 to it was still thrifty and full of apples. One year a 

 late frost in the spring killed nearly all the fruit in 

 the locality, but a large limb of this tree had been 

 partially broken off and hung by a little wood and 

 bark. The check of sap caused it to blossom a week or 



