Che Lay of the Band 
of excitement. Then I fetch a compass far around 
toward home, and wherever I find the sumac in 
blossom, whether a hundred clustered bushes, or a 
single panicle of flowers hidden deep in the woods, 
there I find my golden bees. I wonder if, in all their 
range, they let waste one drop of this heavy golden 
sumac honey ? 
Do you know the flowers in your range as well as 
the bees know them in theirs? And, what is more, 
are you getting the honey? Do you know your dead 
trees and stone piles, and the folk who dwell in them ? 
Could you take me, silent and soft of foot, from hole 
to hole, from nest to nest, from hedgerow to thicket, 
to cripple, to meadow, making me acquainted with 
your neighbors ? 
This is what Gilbert White could have done had 
you visited him at Selborne. This is what John 
Burroughs still does when the college girls go out 
to Slabsides. 
Owning a farm is not necessary for all of this. 
Only the parish house and the yard belonged to the 
old naturalist of Selborne. Sometimes, indeed, I am 
quite convinced that, for pure and lasting joy in the 
fields, you should not be possessed even of a garden 
213 
