3i8 An American Fruit-Farm 



house. Land, Blackstone gravely informs us, is 

 immovable, therefore the man fastens himself to 

 the land in great hope, as men in shipwreck lash 

 themselves to rafts and spars. Security in life is 

 the pearl of great price; 



"Yet we all know security 

 Is mortals' chief est enemy.** 



Overland, in ox-carts in summer, overlake, 

 in sleds in winter, from New England and New 

 York came that stalwart band some of whose 

 descendants remain in the Valley to this day; but 

 most of the land taken up by the pioneers is now in 

 the hands of strangers. Many of those who first 

 cleared forests and left fields grew old, and fell 

 asleep in the Valley, but some, restless as the 

 sea, pioneers to the heart of their hearts, like 

 Daniel Boone, felt stifled if they saw the smoke 

 from a distant hearth, and, leaving their little clear- 

 ing, sought the prairies of further Ohio, Illinois, 

 Indiana, or the rich lands of Michigan, and some 

 passed far beyond the Great River, even to Cali- 

 fornia, swelling the company of the Argonauts of 

 '49. But they who remained in the Valley and 

 grew old among their fields of com and wheat, 

 their flocks of sheep and cattle, watched the world 

 roll past their doors and part of it roll back again. 

 These were the fathers of the Valley who built 

 roads and bridges, churches and schools, and at 

 last, forsaking their log-cabins, built fine and yet 

 finer houses for themselves and for their children, 



