The Rescue of an Old Place 



which it has been carefully built, seem to 

 help the trees, which continue to send out 

 surface-roots as the ground rises about 

 them ; and though some of them during 

 their first seasons had a sorry time of it 

 in dry, hot weather, they ultimately pulled 

 through, and are no longer sources of anx- 

 iety. 



The barren The most exposed portion of the place 

 being thus provided for, we turned our at- 

 tention to the barren hillside, which was 

 a pretty hopeless-looking spot for trees of 

 any kind. This elevation, some forty feet 

 high and running back nearly six hundred 

 feet from the main street, seems to be the 

 bank of some former water-way ; at least 

 I like to fancy that the odd terraces, 

 which break its otherwise even slope, re- 

 present the gradual subsidence of some 

 body of water which must once have filled 

 the gorge, when the present meadow was 

 an arm of the sea. Gravel and sand, 

 mixed with moderate-sized cobblestones, 

 are its constituent parts, nothing like a 

 boulder having come so far down. We 

 have often regretted that some of the no- 

 ble rocks which abound on the other side 

 16 



