249 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
each other in the Otselic Valley. A lovely Homer 
stretches along the banks of the Tioughnioga, near 
enough to shake hands with its younger but more enter- 
prising neighbor, Cortland; while East Homer beckons 
to both from a neighboring hillside. One can find 
Dryden a few miles to the south, Ithaca and Scipio at 
the west, and Pompey a little way at the north. 
‘One day in company with some old-time friends, we 
drove over to the old homestead in Solon for a day’s 
picnic in the woods. The trees about the farm house 
have grown almost out of recognition, but the row 
of large maples on the hillside have all dis- 
appeared but two, and they stand up, grand 
but lonely in their isolation, like some aged 
people who have survived their cotemporaries. The 
beautiful sugar bush across the flat has been cut down, 
and now blackened stumps and sunburnt grass are seen 
in the place of the smooth boled beeches and towering 
maples. Onthe way to the woods we passed through 
the large orchard, in which every tree was familiar. 
Although the orchard was mostly of seedlings, the fruit 
was better than any other that we shall ever taste again. 
Each tree had an individual history, and nearly every 
onea name. The “Good Tree, ” that ripened its apples 
so early, was missing, but the large “greening” next 
to it was still thrifty and full of apples. One year a 
late frost in the spring killed nearly all the fruit in 
the locality, but a large limb of this tree had been 
partially broken off and hung by a little wood and 
bark. The check of sap caused it to blossom a week or 
