226 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



the benign land. The weather was fair ; I was yoked 

 to no companion, and was apparently the only tourist 

 on that route. The field occupations drew my eye 

 as usual. They were very simple, and consisted 

 mainly of the gathering of root crops. I saw no 

 building of fences, or of houses or barns, and no 

 draining or improving of any kind worth mentioning, 

 these things having all been done long ago. Speak- 

 ing of barns reminds me that I do not remember to 

 have seen a building of this kind while in England, 

 much less a group or cluster of them as at home, hay 

 and grain being always stacked, and the mildness of 

 the climate rendering a protection of this kind un- 

 necessary for the cattle and sheep. In contrast, Amer- 

 ica may be called the country of barns and out- 

 buildings : 



"Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns," 



as Walt Whitman apostrophizes the Union. 



I missed also many familiar features in the autumn 

 fields those given to our landscape by Indian corn, 

 for instance, the tent-like stouts, the shucks, the rus- 

 tling blades, the ripe pumpkins strewing the field ; for 

 notwithstanding England is such a garden our corn 

 does not flourish there. I saw no buckwheat either, 

 the red stubble and little squat figures of the upright 

 sheaves of which are so noticeable in our farming 

 districts at this season. Neither did I see any gather- 

 ing of apples, or orchards from which to gather them. 

 " As sure as there are apples in Herefordshire," seems 



