66 TAZEWELL COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



foot, " I think, sir, you are a little above your business." 

 " But time and chance make all things even," and so my 

 tribulations at length ceased, or rather were overcome. My 

 horses and I are on good terms now, and have been for many a 

 long year. I have often wondered if good horses don't go to 

 heaven, what will become of some men. 



TKEE PLANTING. 



But now new troubles awaited me. It was an admitted 

 truth that timber was a necessity. But to ray mind it was- 

 more, it was a luxury, and a luxury which I was unwilling to 

 do without. So, having a colt to dispose of, I sold him to 

 Overman & Mann, of Normal, for trees. Very little was said 

 of this transaction in the " Kitchen Cabinet," but if I 

 am a good reader of mind in looks, the conclusion was pretty 

 generally arrived at, that the colt was not the only one 

 that was " sold." Some of my neighbors ventured to sug- 

 gest that there was, at Jacksonville, an asylum for lunatics. 

 But my trees are my vindicators at this writing, they 

 are from thirty to fifty feet in hight, and for beauty any one 

 of mv evergreens is worth a horse. 



But this was too slow and expensive a way to have trees. 

 So, in 1860 I planted black Avalnuts and butternuts. In 1861 

 I planted the seed of the soft maple, and in 1862 set from the 

 forest several acres of hard maples, all of which trees are now 

 in fine health and the admiration of every one of good taste (the 

 only persons one should care to please in the Avay of landscape 

 gardening and ornamentation). Add to these, which a kind 

 friend sent me, several hundred seedling white ash, 

 now very beautiful, and for which I thank him every time 

 I see the grove or pass into its delightful solitude. The 

 old adage, that " Providence helps him who helps himself," 

 is doubtless true. It is likewise true that friend loves to help 

 friend who is trying to help himself. My groves are beauti- 

 ful clumps of trees. I'm no friend to solitary trees. We all 

 subscribe to the good old doctrine, "that it is not good for 

 man to be alone," and so I think of trees. 



