20 COMMON SENSE 
evergreens to which I have alluded as giving the place a portion of 
its name. My line ran along the top of the cliff, but did not 
include much of the evergreens. ‘Ihe mountain itself seemed to 
belong to nobody. It was almost barren; cattle would find no 
pasture on it, and sheep could not be kept in that region on ac- 
count of the village curs, which were constantly prowling about, 
and would soon have destroyed any sheep that might have been 
kept. It had been sold for taxes several times, but no bidder had 
ever taken possession and kept it. My line ran along this cliff for 
a few hundred feet, and then turned straight down the hillside. 
When half way between the cliff and the plain the line turned to 
the east, and ran in this direction for some distance, after which it 
descended to the line of the next property, and then ran in a wavy 
westerly direction till it met the road already mentioned. If the 
reader will follow this description, marking the outhme on paper 
with a pencil, he will see that the property had almost the form of 
a boot, with the toe lying towards the morning sun. And, indeed, 
“so strong was the resemblance to a boot, as seen on some plans 
and surveys that had been made, that it had actually been called 
“The Boot” before Brown bought it and gave it a more poetical 
name. 
Such being the general “lay of the land,” an account of its vary- 
ing character will now be more easily understood. I say varying, 
for even on this small plot of ground varieties of heavy and light 
soil were found, as well as black vegetable mould. Under the 
cliffs the ground was mostly covered with rocky debris, which was 
entirely barren and irreclaimable. In spots the broken rocks were 
covered with sandy loam which had gradually washed out of the 
very thin soil above. On these spots, however, nothing grew, 
because they dried so very quickly, except where they were kept 
moist by perennial springs, several of which trickled down the cliff, 
their course being marked by the exuberant growth of ferns which 
sprang out of the rocks, growing in little pockets filled with rich 
black mould. A few yards from the base of the cliff the soil 
became richer and deeper, though still very stoney, and the further 
down, the better the land became, On this ground was formed the 
