THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
I 
THE PEACH TREES ARE IN BLOOM 
MARCH winds may howl, dull skies may lower, 
and chill airs pinch, up there in the frozen 
North, but down here — the peach trees are in bloom ! 
They have opened like a burst of sunshine. On all 
sides, as far as the eye can reach, the landscape has 
over it the glow of peach blossoms. 
If you happen to be crossing the State of North 
Carolina towards the mountains at this time, you 
will get a thrilling sense of the real mission of the 
peach tree. As the train sweeps over the country, 
one flower- wreathed picture follows another : here a 
tumble-down cabin with peach trees in ecstatic 
bloom at one corner, there a hollow filled with airy 
pink blossoms from the midst of which rises a farm- 
house roof; the sordid little village, the unpainted 
house, the slope, the hilltop, each and everything 
your eye beholds is an adorable picture by grace of 
the blossoming peach trees. They seem to have 
alighted by chance, here, there, and everywhere, like 
wild flowers. You see them scattered over the cotton 
fields singly or in groups, covering the waste places, 
making long hedges, embowering the earth. 
Occasionally these trees are in orchards that do not 
