MY OWN ACRE 



day than when Jenny Lind called it so "Para- 

 dise." On its town side this wooded ground a 

 few hundred yards wide drops suddenly a hun- 

 dred feet or so to the mill stream and is cut into 

 many transverse ravines. 



In its timber growth, conspicuous by their 

 number, tower white-pines, while among them 

 stand only less loftily a remarkable variety of 

 forest trees imperfectly listed by a certain hum- 

 ble authority as "mostly h-oak, h-ellum, and 

 h-ash, with a little 'ickory." 



Imperfectly listed, for there one may find also 

 the birch and the beech, the linden, sycamore, 

 chestnut, poplar, hemlock-spruce, butternut, and 

 maple overhanging such pleasant undergrowths 

 as the hornbeam and hop-hornbeam, willows, 

 black-cherry and choke-cherry, dogwood and 

 other cornels, several viburnums, bush maples 

 of two or three kinds, alder, elder, sumach, 

 hazel, witch-hazel, the shadblow and other per- 

 ennial, fair-blooming, sweet-smelling favorites, 

 beneath which lies a leaf -mould rife with ferns 

 and wild flowers. 



From its business quarter the town's chief 



5 



