8 nature Stuoies in Berkshire. 



They come at one like a man with a club. As one 

 breathes them he is reminded of an old toper's dram 

 which "bites all the way down." But the Berkshire 

 climate does nothing like this. Its touch is gentle, 

 its manner mild. It does good in a way one would 

 almost call insidious. It banishes languor without 

 creating an unwholesome fever for work ; and it 

 makes rest refreshing, without adding to the need 

 of it by its own lifelessness. In a word, it is very 

 likely to be just what everybody thought it was not, 

 yet is almost certain to be what the majority of 

 people are glad to have it. 



The things here set down are true of Berkshire at 

 any and at all seasons. Its attractiveness is not a 

 remittent trait. Its charm begins in the spring and 

 lasts to the winter's end. For those who love a real 

 winter, with crisp, frosty airs, roaring winds, snow- 

 falls and icy ponds, the chime of the sleigh-bells 

 and the musical crunch of footsteps on the trodden 

 snow, Berkshire will always be fascinating. And 

 when the marsh-marigold in the meadow and the 

 arbutus in the wood blazon the advent of spring, 

 Berkshire but turns a new page in the volume of its 

 delights. 



The summers of Berkshire have become the annual 

 necessity of thousands who out of baking cities and 

 their brick and brown-stone caves swarm over its 

 green fields, and sit under its elms and maples, 

 thankful for its fair vistas, its thrifty fields, its noble 

 hills and mountains. And when autumn sets the 



