Music of the Wild 



worthless coiiuiiercially, but at times they bear 

 fruit tliat can be used for cider at least; so their 

 Old Or- liA'es are spared. In some of these orchards the 

 chards ^^^j^j^jj^ yf |]^g father or grandfather who first wres- 

 tled with the forest yet stands. In many of them 

 tlie home has fallen to decay or been torn down 

 for firewood, but the ap^jle trees remain even in 

 plowed fields and amidst growing grain. These 

 trees are monuments to a deeply-rooted objection 

 to cutting a fruit tree, in spite of the fact that 

 they ])roduce small, sour, blighted, and wormy 

 apples. 



Almost without exception the old snake-fences 

 surround them, weighted with loads of growing 

 shrubs and vines, and on and under them home 

 field mice, moles, rabbits, chipmunks, lizards, birds 

 of low habit, night moths, and bugs and insects of 

 innumerable species. The grass grows long, rank, 

 and so silken fine it is delightful to lie and thread 

 it through the fingers, and recite those exquisite 

 lines of AA^alt Whitman's, — 



I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, 

 Out of tiopeful green stuff woven." 



Nearly all the old orchards are on the highest 

 sjiot of a farm and near tlie center of the land. 

 These pioneers had the English j^lan of an estate, 

 with the residence in tlie middle, away from the 

 annoyance of travel and the dust of the highway. 



250 



