UNCLE SAM'S FARM. 171 



of its township, perhaps more cultivable land than any 

 other equal district in Massachusetts. 



" We have entered Berkshire by a road far supe- 

 rior to the Appian -way. On every side are rich 

 valleys and smiling hill-sides, and, deep-set in their 

 hollows, lovely lakes sparkle like gems. From one of 

 these, a modest sheet of water in Lanesborough, flows 

 out the Housatonic, the minister of God's bounty, 

 bringing to the meadows along its course a yeasty 

 renewal of fertility, and the ever changing, ever 

 present beauty that marks God's choicest works. It 

 is the most judicious of rivers ; like a discreet rural 

 beauty, it bears its burdens and does its work out of 

 sight; its water privileges for mills, furnaces, and 

 factories, are aside from the villages. When it comes 

 near to them, as in Stockbridge, it lingers like a 

 lover, turns and returns, and when fairly off, flies past 

 rolling wheels and dinning factories, till, reaching the 

 lovely meadows of Barrington, it again disports itself 

 at leisure." 



In June I visited Providence, which is the Capital 

 of the State of Rhode Island. It is the second city 

 in New England, being next to Boston in population 

 and trade. It is forty-two miles from Boston, and 

 contains a population of forty-two thousand. The 



