Music of the WiJd 



and sandy, but close the water, and spring from 



a deeply-rooted bulb. The leaves are like those of 



The a tuberose, and from a tall, slender stem grow 



Bumble- gj,joie floAvers forming a cluster that slightly re- 

 bee Choir '^ . f . 



sembles hyacinths. They are loaded with ])ollen, 

 and the wild honey-bee and all species of bumble- 

 bees, in fact, ants, flies, and sweet-lovers of every 

 familj^ feast upon them. They are one of the 

 rarest and most beautiful blues of nature, and the 

 music around them is unceasing. 



From the top of an elevation from which the 

 sweet marsh grass had been shorn I looked down 

 to a cultivated strip bordering a marsh, last 

 August. I could see blades of corn waving, and 

 distinguish a solid mass (jf peculiar blue-green, 

 flaking my way through the intervening swamp, 

 and climbing a fence buried in bloom, I came to 

 the (jueerest effort at culti^'ation I ever had seen. 

 From a layer of soil so thin that it wovdd not bear 

 my M'eight Avithout quivering beneath me the flow- 

 ers had been moA\ed, and with such cultivation as 

 could be given with a hoe were growing the finest 

 cucumbers and cabbage imaginable. The picture 

 I made there illustrates the character of the soil 

 and proves ho\v closely men are pressing the marsh, 

 as no words of mine can. 



It ^yaH Thoreau mIio, in Mriting of the destruc- 

 tion of the forests, exclaimed, "Thank Heaven, 

 they can not cut down the clouds!" Aye, Init they 



332 



