10 MY FARM. 



gray hairs come to a man ; but the core is sound, and 

 the life sap swift, and in it are the juices of a thou- 

 sand leaves. 



A \vood, too, for a contemplative mind is always 

 suggestive. Its aisles swarm with memories ; the 

 sighing of the boughs in the wind brings a tender 

 murmur from the farthest days of childhood, when 

 leaves rustled all the long summer at the nurse's win- 

 dow. Bird-nesting boyhood comes again to sit astride 

 the limbs to hunt for slippery elm, or the fragrant 

 leaves of young wintergreen, or the aromatic roots of 

 sassafras. 



This scarred bole, so straight and true, reminds 

 of still larger ones in the forest of Fontainebleau ; the 

 chestnuts recall the broad-leaved ones of the Apen- 

 nines ; the hemlocks bring to memory the kindred 

 sapin of the Juras, under whose shade I sat upon an 

 August day, years ago, panting with the heat, and 

 looking off upon the yellow plains which stretch be- 

 yond the old French town of Poligny, and upon the 

 shadows of clouds, that flitted over the far and 

 " golden sided " Burgundy. 



Next, the coveted place was to have its quota of 

 running water. It would be a very absurd thing 

 to go far to find reasons for the love of a brook. 

 There are practical ones of which every farmer 

 knows the force ; and of which every farmer's boy, 



