1891
May 12
(No 5)
Mass.
  West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard . of dead trees sprinkled 
here and there chiefly along the crests of the ridges. 
It would be difficult to find a region more dreary 
and barren than this as it appeared to-day under 
a lowering sky and swept by a bitter cold wind. 
To Faxon it recalled the "Blasted Heath" in [?] .
I though of the upper slopes of Mt. Washington 
a little above timber line where the skeleton forests 
lie, of a Maine burnt land or Caribou bog, and 
of some of the oak scrub lands along Indian River, 
Florida. But to none of them is the resemblance 
at all close. In fact the "brush plains" of Martha's 
Vineyard are unlike anything that I have seen 
elsewhere and with their characteristic bird, the 
Heath Hen, probably unique. Their dreary aspect 
at this season is of course lost in Summer when 
green oak foliage (see my journal of June 1890)
  From the point where we viewed them this 
morning they stretch northward practically as far 
as the eye can reach (five or six miles we were told);
eastward the bordering line of oak woods could 
be dimly seen perhaps three miles away; on the 
south the pines about Scotts stood out in bold 
relief and with the oaks (25 to 35 feet high) along the 
Edgartown road formed a well-marked boundary 
shutting out the view beyond. to the west pastures,
mowing fields and other cultivated lands extended 
to the borders of the village of West Tisbury where 
house tops and spires showed here and there 
among the orchards & shade trees in its gardens