118 OLD ORCHARDS. 



know, when we see it, there is no watchful guardian of 

 the place, anxious to keep out trespassers, from the bird 

 that sings in the tree, to the truant boy who watches 

 for forbidden fruit. It is a sign that the field has been 

 partially restored to nature ; that it is in one sense 

 abandoned by its proprietor, and is freely open to all, like 

 the wild wood and the whortleberry pasture. 



The grounds have acquired a rugged and bushy appear- 

 ance from the renewal of many wild plants. Viburnums, 

 elders, and wild roses have reappeared in the borders, 

 and tufts of low blueberry-bushes are conspicuous here 

 and there, fringing the edges of some projecting rock with 

 their heathlike blossoms and foliage and their bright 

 azure fruit. The clover and herdsgrass have disappeared, 

 and in the place of them are brown spleenworts and tufted 

 andropogons. The rocks forming the loose stone-wall are 

 incrusted with lichens and garlanded with the creeping 

 sumach, and the squirrel finds shelter and concealment 

 there as peaceful as in his native wild wood. "We find 

 here some of the solitary birds of the forest, and the quail 

 leads out her young fearlessly, as if the old apple-trees 

 were guardians of their safety. We look around, doubt- 

 ful if human hands have ever marred the sacredness of 

 this lovely spot; but we see that it is a quadrangular 

 space, that the old trees stand in broken rows ; and the 

 sweet pyrola and the red summer lily announce by their 

 presence the restoration of the grounds to nature. 



Apple-trees are not the only denizens of an old or- 

 chard. Around its borders standard forest trees fling 

 their shadowy branches over the old stone-wall ; equal- 

 ling perhaps the fruit-trees in age, though from their 

 greater vitality still retaining the vigor and beauty of 

 their prime. The oak is there, with its playful squirrels 

 and its contorted boughs. A few hickories and wild- 

 cherry trees stand there, like sentinels of the field ; and 



