MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 47 



ponds of stagnant water, and who like the green mantle of the 

 standing pool better than a meadow covered with a carpet of 

 herd's grass and clover. We are not partial to a horizontal 

 tariff; but, however unpleasantly the declaration may strike the 

 minds of some of our aristocratic friends, the Committee must 

 frankly pronounce their approbation of the prevalent democratic 

 propensity, to produce a horizontal surface, by removing sand- 

 hills to elevate the adjoining bogs and marshes. It was pleasant, 

 moreover, to see a reclaimed meadow of fifteen acres, marked 

 out in squares almost as numerous as those on a chequer-board, 

 by ditches, the mud from which had been converted to manure, 

 and, being spread on dry and barren protuberances, had trans- 

 formed them to cornfields and orchards. 



The Committee witnessed, with unspeakable delight, the evi- 

 dences of a growing taste for the cultivation of the various 

 "kinds of fruits adapted to the soil and climate, and the success 

 which has followed the efforts to improve the qualities, and 

 increase the quantity, of that sort of food which nourished our 

 great progenitors in the garden of Eden. It is said, indeed, that 

 the eating of an apple by that virtuous pair — our chaste grand- 

 parents — in Paradise, brought upon them the awful denuncia- 

 tion of an offended Deity, and entailed on all their posterity the 

 curse, to eat bread in the sweat of their brow ! — but we are loth 

 to believe that, in these degenerate days, any grievous maledic- 

 tion would follow the practice of eating abundantly of the 

 fruit of our vineyards, gardens and orchards. The committee 

 rather incline to the belief, that a more free and constant use of 

 the fruits adapted to our soil would be conducive to health, and, 

 as far as physical nutriment can contribute to the improvement 

 of the intellectual powers of man, that a diet of fruits is favor- 

 able to the refinement of taste, the improvement of the mind, 

 the progress of moral culture, and the general melioration of the 

 human character. While the committee have seen with pleas- 

 ure the increasing disposition, among their brethren of the agri- 

 cultural community, to cultivate the apple, the pear, the peach, 

 and the plum, they regret that they have seen but few and feeble 

 attempts to embellish the roads with forest trees. A few hours 

 at the proper season, devoted to this object, would improve the 



