CROPS AND PROFITS 



dered necessary the employment of every foot 

 of our area for food-growing purposes, it may 

 be incumbent on us to cleave all the rocks, and 

 to clear away all the copses: but until then, 

 I shall love to treat with a tender consideration 

 the green mantle— albeit of brambles and wild 

 vines— with which Nature covers her rough- 

 nesses; and I like to see in the streaming ten- 

 drils, and in the nodding tassels of bloom which 

 bind and tuft these wild thickets of the hills, 

 a sampler of vegetable luxuriance, which every 

 summer's day provokes and defies all our 

 rivalry of the fields. 



What is called tidiness, is by no means al- 

 ways taste ; and I am slow to believe that farm 

 economy must be at eternal war with grace. 

 I know well that no inveterate improver should 

 ever tempt me to extirpate the dandelions from 

 the green carpet of my lawn, or to cut away 

 the wild Kalmia bush which in yonder group 

 among the rocks, is just now reddening into 

 its crown of blossoms. 



THE FARM FLAT 



It is a different matter with the eighty acres 

 of meadow which lie stretched out in view 

 from my door. There, at least, it seemed to 



135 



