Vermont Botanical and Bird Clubs 17 



markable botanical region, in the neighborhood of Willoughby Lake, 

 in quest of plants and other objects of interest. Deeming such in- 

 formation congenial to the spirit of your magazine, I have placed it at 

 your disposal, as subserving the cause of botany and floriculture. 



Have you ever heard of Willoughby Lake? If my reader says no, 

 let me inform him that said Willoughby Lake is in the small township 

 of Westmore, Vermont, 21 miles north of St. Johnsbury. St. Johns- 

 bury is easily accessible from any quarter, but we were borne first 

 along the Vermont Valley Railroad on the banks of the Connecticut, 

 catching glimpses through the opening hills, on either hand, of such 

 delightful bits of landscape as Fisher, or Brown or Cole would have 

 loved to paint. An hour — ^and we were at Bellows' Falls, where, by 

 delay of the Boston train, we indulged in admiration of the scenery 

 adjacent, and of other noticeable subjects, until, admonished by the 

 shrilly whistle of the time of departure we embarked on the Sullivan 

 train, and off again through a succession of other delightful scenery, 

 looking now down on quiet farms ornamented with the graceful elm 

 side by side, yet in striking contrast, with the staid and proper maple — 

 and now at Ascutney, with its sociable peaks, 3,100 feet high, wooded 

 to the top, and seemingly sloping gently down into the plain, and so ta 

 Windsor. Hence, the Vermont Central Railroad enabled us to reach 

 White River, where, by another railroad, viz., the Connecticut and 

 Passumpsic, we were transported to St. Johnsbury. The scenery has 

 been changing its character, meanwhile, for these last 60 miles. North- 

 eastward, the White Mountain range — elements of the grand mingling 

 with the bewitching beauty of the nearer view. 



Everybody knows what a wonderful and curiously contrived con- 

 venience a railroad is; and to him who would fain explore mountain 

 streams or mountain lakes for the finny tribes, or, in no less exciting 

 devotion, to flower hunting would engage, such modern innovations on 

 the primitive style of forest traveling are, with all their injuries in- 

 flicted on Dame Nature, of an available commodity. We can easily 

 imagine the delight which sprung up in the breast of one of our 

 tourists, who, thus, in the brief space of a day's time, was rapidly 

 approaching — not, my reader, the, but — a Garden of Eden — where the 

 plants, if not the fruits, of tempting beauty, had almost wasted their 

 charms and fragrance on the desert air. It were not necessary, then, 

 to tell you of all the wonders to be seen about the last mentioned town, 

 nor how there is a great factory, where one of the emblems of justice 



