284 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



dent relish, and twitter their satisfaction between each 

 morsel swallowed. As to the pits, they rain down upon 

 the grass, and before winter the ground will be well 

 strewn with them. On the hillside, these fruit-stones 

 sprout in May, and, if not browsed by the cattle, form a 

 dense thicket, waist-high, by early autumn. The rapidi- 

 ty with which a country may become covered with trees, 

 if left undisturbed, is realized when we see that what, 

 last summer, was smooth grass, is now a plantation of 

 cherry sprouts. Startling as it may seem, it takes but 

 three years to have a cherry grove, with trees ten feet 

 in height. After that their growth is slower; but a 

 decade is only needed to convert a farm into a forest. 



After the cherries come the purple berries of the poke, 

 and the robins again have a feast. These berries are so 

 full of juice that the ground beneath the bushes is 

 sometimes stained by it, and the muscles of the birds 

 are darkened with it ; yet, although the fruit is poison- 

 ous to man, it does not affect the birds ; but, on the oth- 

 er hand, people have suffered slight toxic effects from 

 eating freely of poke-gorged robins. 



August 10.— A half-cloudy day — "warm, cool, and 

 pleasant," as Uz Gaunt would say — I was out early for 

 a long ramble. Following the hillside, and raiding the 

 meadows at times, for some supposed treasure, dimly 

 discerned from a distance, at length I found myself in 

 a village. A brief encounter with a fool made village- 

 life distasteful, and I hurried back to Crosswicks Creek, 

 which here tarries to move the machinery of three mills, 

 and then moves on, unconscious of the blessings it has be- 



