UPLAND PASTURES 15 



rounded by huge woodpiles against next year's "b'ilin' 

 down." At the head of the grove, after an acre or 

 two more of clearing, the path suddenly starts upward 

 at a sharp angle, and for a quarter of a mile goes through 

 a dense forest of young spruces and balsams so dense 

 that scarce a leaf of undergrowth is visible on the brown 

 needles. It emerges from the evergreens as suddenly 

 as it entered them, and you find yourself on a plateau 

 pasture five or six acres in extent, once regular in shape 

 but now broken into tiny bays and inlets all along the 

 edges by the invasion of the forest, by jetties and capes 

 of Christmas trees. And out beyond each cape and 

 peninsula are reefs and islands of young balsams, any- 

 where from six inches to twenty feet high, rich in colour, 

 perfect in shape, incomparable in fragrance. The pas- 

 ture, in a few years, would be quite overrun, oblit- 

 erated, were it not for the cattle. They cannot quite 

 fight back the invasion, but they can hold it in check. 

 None of them is visible, perhaps, as you enter this 

 mountain glade, but you hear the sweet tinkle of a bell, 

 and presently, around a cape of Christmas trees, comes a 

 Jersey, head down, bell jingling, to lif t her soft eyes and 

 look at you. 



The pasture is almost level, but at the farther side 

 the steep ascent is renewed again, the path marked by a 

 giant oak. Here the hardwood begins, witness of some 

 bygone lumbering. Behind the oak looms the great 

 north peak of Kinsman, which can now be climbed, 



