28 SUMMER IN A BOG. 



swampy regions, I know, as it swallowed a ten- 

 foot fence rail without the least difficulty when 

 pushed in endwise. 



All the common trees of the forest are here : 

 the ash, walnut, hickory, oak, elm, and maple, 

 each in its varieties, except the butternut, which 

 I have not seen thus far in this vicinity. The 

 fox-grape stretches its fertile stem from tree 

 to tree above the stream. A red mulberry show- 

 ers down its fruit in season. In one spot there 

 is a group of young trees recently dead, their 

 trunks clasped by a poison vine in flourishing 

 health. 



At this point another stream from hills 

 farther north joins its waters to the first. The 

 forest has been cleared, but along the banks 

 the prickly ash, the lance-leaved buckthorn, the 

 wild plum, and the wahoo still grow. The little 

 shrub called New Jersey Tea (the leaves of 

 which were used by the soldiers of the Amer- 

 ican Revolution as a substitute for that tea 

 which was east, into the ocean, to furnish a 

 beverage), also called the wild snowball, grows 

 along the fences of the upland. The red-bud 

 and the dogwood make the woods joyful in the 

 spring. 



All about our feet the ground is laughing 

 in flowers. Violets, phlox, spring beauties, 

 anemones, hepatioas, in spring adorn the sod. 



