202 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



horse's head through the cow-pastures to the east. In 

 a swamp to the left of the grassy wood-road, I collected 

 scattered Pogonias and Limodorums, although the 

 season was late for them. Still farther eastward are 

 impenetrable swamps, through which Ball Brook flows 

 northward to the Walloomsac near Bennington. The 

 road led around to another swamp farther eastward, 

 toward which I drove. It was one of those wild re- 

 gions, tangled with tamarack, balsam-firs, high-huckle- 

 berry trees, amid the peat and sphagnum. The green 

 spires of tamarack and fir swayed in billowy waves as 

 the wind breathed through these vales; and the sun- 

 shine drew forth the fragrance of pitch and bal- 

 samic resins from the blistered bark of these young 

 trees. 



I fastened my horse to a pine tree, and penetrated 

 the depths of this swamp as far as I dared, along a 

 moss-grown brook bed leading from a spring toward 

 the interior. The heart of this region was impenetra- 

 ble. The pioneers, settling along the valley of Ball 

 Brook, chose in Revolutionary days this heavily tim- 

 bered region, in preference to the lower swamps of the 

 deeper vales of the Hoosac. It has proven to be the 

 coldest, most desolate, and barren soil for corn and 

 grains, — the most productive crops here being stumps 

 and boulders! Shad-bushes and the high-huckleberry 

 bushes were laden with berries. I stood upon a log and 

 ate of them for some time, meanwhile listening to the 

 choruses of locusts and numerous thrushes, screaming 

 jays, young crows, and whistling hawks. Many dis- 



