PONDS AND LAKES. 241 



Besides, about this time I sold this country-place and so 

 cannot say what the lily-pond finally became, as I never 

 revisited it. Much like any natural lily-pond in the woods, 

 I fancy. Returning to the city, I continued to live there 

 most of the time for several years. Yet I never at any 

 time wholly lost my interest in lawn-planting. Now that I 

 had no country-place to absorb my attention, I went about 

 at home and abroad and saw how other people succeeded 

 and failed in their landscape-gardening efforts. An impor- 

 tant source of information existed, I found, in the different 

 nurseries. I did not take so much to the woods now as 

 aforetime. Concerning the construction of ponds and 

 streams and the ornamentation of their surface with aqua- 

 tic plants, I did not, however, secure as much information 

 as I had hoped. At last, one day, I again met my fate and 

 bought another country- place, only instead of a hundred 

 acres as before it now contained less than ten. The soil 

 was of excellent quality, and there were on either side 

 of the house some grand old native oak, elm, and tulip 

 trees, and I planted a few large shrubs on the outer boun- 

 daries. Paths and roads there were none, except one short 

 carriage-sweep leading directly from the house to the high- 

 way. Off to the west of the house sloped a half-dozen 

 acres of meadow land, the rich velvety turf of which had 

 known no plough for half a century. Sheep and cows had 

 pastured it, and sometimes it had been mown. I mowed it 

 and manured it too, and prided myself on the finest lawn to 

 be seen in the county. At the foot of the slope came the 

 feature which had chiefly induced me to buy the place. It 

 was a broad placid stream fifty to one hundred feet wide, 



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