RARE AND NOTABLE PLANTS 



spicuous above a bordering wealth of 

 vegetation. 



From the valley we turn into 

 Thorp's lane, once a gem of rural 

 beauty, but now sadly changed, to 

 view a beautiful avenue of silver ma- 

 ples (acer dasycarpum) extending 

 from the main entrance to the man- 

 sion where Fanny Kemble wrote "My 

 children were born, by first and only 

 American home." In "Records of La- 

 ter Life" the same gifted author, un- 

 der date of 1837, notes: "The other 

 day, for the first time, I explored my 

 small future domain, which is bound- 

 ed on the right by the high road, on 

 the left by a not unromantic little mill- 

 stream with bits of rock, and cedar 

 bushes, and dams, and, I am sorry to 

 say, a very picturesque, half-tumbled- 

 down factory; on the north by fields 

 and orchards of our neighbors, and 

 another road; and on the south by a 

 pretty, deep, shady lane, running 

 from the high road to the above-men- 

 tioned factory. There are four pretty 

 pasture meadows, and a very pretty 

 piece of woodland, which coasting 

 the stream and mill-dam, will, I fore- 

 see, become a favorite haunt of mine." 



37 



