CHESUNCOOK. 
95 
get our canoe and effects over the carry from this lake, 
one of the heads of the Kennebec, into the Penobscot 
River. This railway from the lake to the river occu¬ 
pied the middle of a clearing two or three rods wide 
and perfectly straight through the forest. We walked 
across while our baggage was drawn behind. My com¬ 
panion went ahead to be ready for partridges, while I 
followed, looking at the plants. 
This was an interesting botanical locality for one com¬ 
ing from the South to commence with; for many plants 
which are rather rare, and one or two which are not 
found at all, in the eastern part of Massachusetts, grew 
abundantly between the rails, — as Labrador tea, Kalmia 
glauca, Canada blueberry (which was still in fruit, and 
a second time in bloom), Clintonia and Linnaea borealis, 
which last a lumberer called moxon , creeping snowberry, 
painted trillium, large-flowered bellwort, etc. I fancied 
that the Aster radula, Diplopappus umbellatus, Solidago 
lanceolatus, red trumpet-weed, and many others which 
were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the lake 
and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive 
look there. The spruce and fir trees crowded to the 
track on each side to welcome us, the arbor-vitas, with 
• 
its changing leaves, prompted us to make haste, and the 
sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so. Some¬ 
times an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with 
its rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than 
our trees in the most favorable positions. You did not 
expect to find such spruce trees in the wild woods, but 
they evidently attend to their toilets each morning even 
there. Through such a front-yard did we enter that 
wilderness. 
There was a very slight rise above the lake,— the 
