HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



say: "The Willow mice have come, — and the 

 spring." 



Nor must I forget the Barberry, beautiful in 

 its bloom, and still more beautiful with its 

 crimson fruit, — the May-flower, the Sumac, 

 the Sweet-briar, the Bilberry, with its fairy 

 bells, and the whole race of wild vines — among 

 which not least, is the luxuriant Frost-grape, 

 tossing its tendrils with forest freedom from 

 the tops of the tallest trees, and in later June 

 filling the whole air with the exquisite perfume 

 of its blossoms. 



It may seem that a great estate and wide 

 reach of land may be demanded for the aggre- 

 gation of all these denizens of the wood, yet 

 it is not so; I have all these and more than 

 these, with room for their own riotous luxu- 

 riance, in scattered groups and copses, without 

 abstracting so much as an acre from the till- 

 able surface of the land. The brambles, thick- 

 ets, and unkempt hedge-rows which half the 

 farmers of the country leave to encroach upon 

 the fertility and qrder of their fields, work 

 tenfold more of harm than the coppices which 

 I have planted on rocky declivities, and on 

 lands, else unserviceable ; or as a shelter to my 

 garden of poultry yard, — as a screen from the 

 too curious eyes of the public; — tangled wil- 



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