Lily-Ponds. 23 



Let them take counsel, or, at any rate, take warning. Do not discard 

 evergreens ; but do not plant eighty-foot spruces close under the south 

 windows. 



Study, I repeat it, study other people's successes, their blunders, their 

 failures ; and try to avoid them as you work out the destiny of your place. 

 Remember the form, the size, the color : they are not all black ; they are 

 yellow, golden, blue, brown, red, almost crimson, and purple. Think of all 

 this before planting, and there will be little left but to admire and enjoy. 



I write this, not as an argument against (\q.q\&\xo\x% trees, hnifor evergreens. 

 If you submit it to your readers, they must accept it, not as an attempt to 

 cover the ground, but merely a suggestion to provoke thought upon a 

 subject of great interest to all country men. , L. 



April, 1867. 



LILY-PONDS. 



Some of the most delightful prospects are comprised within a narrow 

 compass ; and such, indeed, are all views that have ever been selected for 

 the canvas of the painter. When we ascend a high mountain, we observe 

 that the most enchanting scenes are beheld from some point not far from 

 its base, where the objects of attention are circumscribed by surrounding 

 eminences. A valley of small extent enshrined among wooded hills, if it 

 be not so exhilarating as a scene of wider grandeur, is certainly more sat- 

 isfactory and more picturesque. Here the imagination finds scope for 

 agreeable exercise, without the weariness produced by illimitable space, 

 and the consequent reaching after something beyond our ken. Nature, as 

 any one may observe, does not surfeit us with beauty or grandeur. She 

 economizes her wealth and her resources, and makes no attempt, like am- 

 bitious men when operating with her materials, to dazzle the sight with 

 uninterrupted splendor. She seems to have opened these little valleys 

 among the hills to collect within them a greater amount of beauty than 

 she assigns to ordinary places ; and, to crown them with the highest 

 attractions, she has placed a lily-pond in their centre, suggesting to us all 

 that is charming in landscape and pleasant in rural life. 



