WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



fierce blast and has been removed for fuel. The 

 stumps of these unfortunates soon became nuclei 

 for thickets of briers sown by the wind from the 

 raspberry and blackberry bushes along the fence; 

 their rotting roots were quickly honey-combed by 

 the galleries of termites, ants, and wood-boring 

 grubs, and the dense coverts now form a place of 

 refuge for mice and chipmunks, small ground- 

 birds, grass-snakes, and an occasional blacksnake 

 that creeps up from the brook to spread conster- 

 nation throughout these verdant precincts. Only 

 the wood-pile, the vegetable patch, and a line of 

 currant and gooseberry bushes intervene between 

 the back porch of the house and the gnarled and 

 leaning apple and pear trunks. 



No part of the farm is more delightful than this 

 ancient orchard. It is the first feature to attract 

 the admiring attention of the visitor from the city, 

 and it is the favorite lounging - place of the rustic 

 in his leisure moments. In April he watches the 

 earliest opening of the foliage, greets the first red- 

 dening flower-buds, and gazes with joyful antici- 

 pation upon the whitening blossoms that soon 

 make a vast bouquet of each aged tree and rejuve- 

 nate it. Afterwards, as the flowers carpet the 

 sward with their rosy petals, and the tiny seed- 



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