206 WINTER SUNSHINE 



only tourist on that route. The field occupations 

 drew my eye as usual. They were very simple, and 

 consisted mainly of the gathering of root crops. I 

 saw no building of fences, or of houses or barns, 

 and no draining or improving of any kind worth 

 mentioning, these things having all been done long 

 ago. Speaking of barns reminds me that I do not 

 remember to have seen a building of this kind while 

 in England, much less a group or cluster of them as 

 at home; hay and grain being always stacked, and 

 the mildness of the climate rendering a protection 

 of this kind unnecessary for the cattle ar.d sheep. 

 In contrast, America may be called the country of 

 barns and outbuildings: — 



" Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns," 



as Walt Whitman apostrophizes the Union. 



I missed also many familiar features in the au- 

 tumn fields, — those given to our landscape by In- 

 dian corn, for instance, the tent-like stouts, the 

 shucks, the rustling blades, the ripe pumpkins 

 strewing the field; for, notwithstanding England is 

 such a garden, our corn does not flourish there. I 

 saw no buckwheat either, the red stubble and little 

 squat figures of the upright sheaves of which are so 

 noticeable in our farming districts at this season. 

 Neither did I see any gathering of apples, or orchards 

 from which to gather them. "As sure as there are 

 apples in Herefordshire " seems to be a proverb in 

 England ; yet it is very certain that the orchard is not 

 the institution anywhere in Britain that it is in this 

 country, or so prominent a feature in the landscape. 



