THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 19 



and outlets, connecting multitudinous lakes, ponds, swamps and 

 morasses, covered in many instances with turf trembling upon their 

 surfaces, we remarked the deep green of the verdure, when con- 

 trasted with that of grasses and grains on more elevated planes, 

 and along undulations. 



From Lower California, far away on the Pacific coast, rumors 

 came of a valley of green amid the sands of the desert, perennial 

 in products of the olive and vine, where buried were the waters of a 

 river in subterranean flow, and where the roots of trees and plants, 

 deep dipping down, found nourishment at a depth of from twenty 

 to thirty feet. In reading of the Sahara and other deserts of earth, 

 the oasis was our only solace, and how to grow an oasis, became a 

 study of intensest interest. The artesian well we longed to look 

 upon, nor could we be satisfied till our eyes had seen it. 



Returning to our native state of New York in the autumn of that 

 year, the green of the grasses of Allegany and Wyoming Counties, 

 as seen amid the sere and yellow leaf, begat dreams of a land 

 somewhere hidden from view, in which no deserts are found, and 

 where grasses greenly growing, alongside of flowers unfading, and 

 fruits that perish not as apples of the Dead Sea, turning to ashes 

 in the hands of men, but growing ever on amid immortelles of the 

 great hereafter, made the gloomy winter of 1839 and '40, to appear 

 the less dark and dreary, on account of our dreamings. 



The next Spring, Summer and Autumn were spent in looking 

 over, from time to time, that delightful section of Western New 

 York, embraced in the valleys of the Genesee River and its num- 

 berless tributaries, noting, more especially, those outgushing 

 fountains of living waters, appealing as springs, chiefest among 

 which are those at Caledonia, Avon and Wethersfield. The Oatka, 

 Honeoye, Tonawanda, Canaseraga, Cohocton, Canisteo and other 

 creeks and rivers, come largely from springs bubbling out all along 



