TAKING REINS IN HAND 



with gnarled birches, and illuminated with 

 nodding, crimson columbines — then yawing 

 away between its green banks, with a new 

 song for every stone that tripped its flow. 



One of the daintiest and most productive 

 fruit gardens it was ever my pleasure to see, 

 was in the midst of other gray rocks; the 

 grapevines so trained as to receive the full 

 reflection of the sun from the surface of the 

 boulders, and the intervals occupied with rank 

 growing gooseberries and plums, all faithfully 

 subject to spade culture. The expense of the 

 removal of the rocks would have been enor- 

 mous; and I doubt very seriously if the pro- 

 ductive capacity would have been increased. 

 Again, I have seen a ridge of cliff with its 

 outlying slaty debris, in the very centre of a 

 garden, which many a booby leveller would 

 have been disposed to blast away, and trans- 

 mute into walls, — yet under the hand of taste, 

 so tressed over with delicate trailing plants, 

 and so kindled up with flaming spikes of Sal- 

 via, and masses of scarlet geranium, as to 

 make it the crowning attraction of the place. 

 All clearance is not judicious clearance. 



But I have not yet cleared the way to my 

 own back door: though at a distance of only 

 a few rods from the highway, I could reach it, 



67 



