226 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



the benign land. The weather was fair ; I was yoked 

 to no companion, and was apparently the only touris* 

 on that route. The field occupations drew my eye 

 as usual. They were very simple, and consisted 

 mainly of the gathering of root crops. I saw no 

 building of fences, or of houses or barns, and no 

 draining or improving of any kind worth mentioning, 

 these things having all been done long ago. Speak- 

 ing of barns reminds me that I do not remember to 

 have seen a building of this kind while in England, 

 much less a group or cluster of them as at home, hay 

 and grain being always stacked, and the mildness ol 

 the climate rendering a protection of this kind un- 

 necessary for the cattle and sheep. In contrast, Amer- 

 ica may be called the country of barns and out- 

 buildings : 



"Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns," 



as Walt Whitman apostrophizes the Union. 



I missed also many familiar features in the autumn 

 fields those given to our landscape by Indian corn, 

 for instance, the tent-like stouts, the shucks, the rus- 

 tling blades, the ripe pumpkins strewing the field; for 

 notwithstanding England is such a garden our corn 

 loes not flourish there. I saw no buckwheat either, 

 the red stubble and little squat figures of the upright 

 sheaves of which are so noticeable in our farming 

 districts at this season. Neither did I see any gather- 

 ing of apples, or orchards from which to gather them. 

 * As sure as there are apples in Herefordshire," seems 



