14 MY FARM. 



In a mere economic point of view, such slope is 

 commended in every northern latitude by the best 

 of agricultural reasons. In all temperate zones two 

 hours of morning are worth three of the afternoon. 

 I do not know an old author upon husbandry who 

 does not affirm my choice, with respect, to all tem- 

 perate regions. If this be true of European countries, 

 it must be doubly true of America, where the most 

 trying winds for fruits, or for frail tempers, drive 

 from the northwest. 



And with the slope, as with the wood and with 

 the sea, come visions ; visions of sloping shores of 

 bays, into whose waters the land dips with every 

 recurring tide ; and where, as the gentlest of tides 

 fall (so upon the Adriatic coast), an empurpled line 

 of fine sea mosses lies crimped upon white sand, and 

 pearly shells glitter in the sun. Or, of lake shores, 

 gentle as Idyls (so of Windermere), with grassy 

 slopes so near and neighborly to the water, that the 

 mower, as he clips the last sentinels in green, sweeps 

 his blade with a bubbling swirl of sound, quite into 

 the margin of the lake. 



Southern slopes, again, suggest luscious ripeness. 

 The first figs I ever gathered, were gathered on such 

 a slope in a dreamy atmosphere of Southern France, 

 with the blue of the Mediterranean in reach of the 



