Music of the Wild 



the taxes and keeps up the fences; the other is the 

 woman with the camera, who coolly lays down en- 

 closures and trespasses where fancy leads. Every 

 such farm on the face of earth is mine, also the 

 birds, moths, and animals that it attracts. 



It is undying glory to own these old cabins, 

 the orchards that surround them, the gardens, 

 stable lots, wood-yards, truck patches, grain fields, 

 pastures, creeks, ponds, little hints that remind you 

 of real forest, stretches of river, thickets, and all 

 the insects, bird, and animal life. These farmers 

 do not know there is another claimant to their land. 

 They think the title is clear. No one has taught 

 them, innocent souls as they are, that they are 

 monopolizing all the beauty to be found in the land- 

 scape, and that beauty "lies in the eye of the be- 

 holder," and therefore it is the property of all who 

 see and claim it for their own. 



My old fields lay stretched in warm spring 

 sunshine, mellowing slowly; for in the shelter of 

 Old- the forest they have not frozen and thawed repeat- 

 e( ^y* as w ^ ien unprotected, so the wheat crop is 

 sure. Among last year's stubble great velvety mul- 

 leins stretch soft green leaves, and thistles prove 

 how hardy they are. The pasture shows living 

 green all over, and as soon as it is firm enough to 

 bear the weight of stock the cattle that bellow dis- 

 consolately in the barnyard on dry feed will race 

 to it like mad things. 



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