DOMESTIC SCENERY OF NEW ENGLAND. XV 



As you continue your journey, the frequent changes in the 

 course of the road are constantly varying your prospect. So 

 little are these ways traversed that they are seldom defaced 

 by repairs. The green rows of turf that mark their course 

 have in many places seen fifty summers without disturbance. 

 Now you are led a long distance in a straight direction 

 over a plain, each side of the road being covered with whor- 

 tleberry-bushes, loaded with fruit in its season, and you 

 hear the halloos and frolic of children while employed in 

 gathering it into baskets. On one of these levels you will 

 often make half an hour's journey through a sparse growth of 

 birches and pines, the ground being covered with wild-rose- 

 bushes, crimson patches of lambkill, bayberry, sweet-fern, and 

 blackberry-vines, the greensward glowing with the purple 

 cranesbill, blue and white violets, and red summer lilies. This 

 kind of scenery is always open and cheerful, for the sandy soil 

 is dry and meagre, and supports but few large trees. 



Where the road winds among the hills, the views it affords 

 would charm any picturesque observer. It is seldom straight 

 for more than a few hundred paces, and as you pass over the 

 uneven grounds, you see the wood and shrubbery in every 

 variety of grouping ; for wild nature and the works of domes- 

 tic art are mingled together more harmoniously in New Eng- 

 land than in any other country. Sometimes the road separates 

 into two parts, to meet again after leaving a long narrow 

 ledge covered with wood, flowers, and ferns, and forming a 

 perfect aviary of singing-birds. This is one of the objects 

 that artistic improvement destroys, and then makes an absurd 

 imitation of it in a city park or a private pleasure-ground ; 

 for if Fashion admires a scene in nature, she is still more 

 delighted with its counterfeit. The road seldom passes over 

 the top of the hill; it winds round it, unless it be a long 

 ridge, when it is cut through it, the banks on each side being 

 overhung by trees, with their roots half exposed from the 

 sliding of the soil, the gravelly sides adorned with purple 

 lupine, yellow St. John's wort, and the delicate flowers of 

 the evening primrose, that open only at dewfalL 



