IX 



FERNS, FENCES, AND WHITE BIRCHES 



(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose) 

 Hemlock Hills, July 3. For nearly a week we 

 have been sauntering through this most entrancing hill 

 country, practically a pedestrian trip, except that the 

 feet that have taken the steps have been shod with steel 

 instead of leather. Your last chronicle has followed 

 me, and was read in a region so pervaded by ferns that 

 your questions concerning their transplanting would 

 have answered themselves if you could have only perched 

 on the rock beside me. There is a fern-lined ravine be- 

 low, a fern-bordered road in front ; and above a log cot- 

 tage, set in a clearing in the hemlocks which has for its 

 boundaries the tumble-down fence piled by the settlers 

 a century or two ago, its crevices now filled by leaf- 

 mould, has become 'at once a natural fernery and a 

 barrier. Why do you not use your old wall in a like 

 manner? Of course your stones may be too closely 

 piled and lack the time-gathered leaf-mould, but a little 

 discretion in removing or tipping a stone here and 

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