EELATIONS OF TEEES TO WATER 



Theee is a spot which I used to -visit some years ago, 

 that seemed to me one of the most enchanting of natural 

 scenes. It was a level plain of about ten acres, sur- 

 rounded by a narrow stream that was fed by a steep ridge 

 forming a sort of amphitheatre round more than half its 

 circumference. The ridge was a declivity of near a hun- 

 dred feet ia height, and so steep that you could climb it 

 only by taking hold of the trees and bushes that covered 

 it. The whole surface consisted of a thin stratum of soil 

 deposited upon a slaty rock; but the growth of trees 

 upon this slope was beautiful and immense, and the 

 water that was constantly trickling from a thousand foun- 

 tains kept the ground all the year green with mosses- and 

 ferns, and gay with many varieties of flowers. The soil 

 was so rich in the ineadow enclosed by this ridge, and 

 annually fertilized by the dilris washed from the hills, 

 that the proprietor every summer filled his barns with hay, 

 which was obtained from it without any cultivation. 



I revisited this spot a few years since, after a long 

 period of absence. A new owner, " a man of progress and 

 enterprise," had feUed the trees that grew so beautifully 

 on the steep sides of this elevation, and valley and hill 

 have become a dreary and unprofitable waste. The thin 

 soil that sustained the forest, no longer protected by 

 the trees and their undergrowth, has been washed down 

 into the valley, leaving nothing but a bald, rocky surface, 

 whose hideousness is scarcely relieved by a few straggling 

 vines. The valley is also ruined ; for the inundations to 



