beneath, with spade and water-pot, see only a few little asters amid
withered leaves.

These are _my_ China-asters, _my_ late garden-flowers. It costs me
nothing for a gardener. The falling leaves, all over the forest, are
protecting the roots of my plants. Only look at what is to be seen, and
you will have garden enough, without deepening the soil in your yard. We
have only to elevate our view a little, to see the whole forest as a
garden. The blossoming of the Scarlet Oak,--the forest-flower,
surpassing all in splendor (at least since the Maple)! I do not know but
they interest me more than the Maples, they are so widely and equally
dispersed throughout the forest; they are so hardy, a nobler tree on the
whole;--our chief November flower, abiding the approach of winter with
us, imparting warmth to early November prospects. It is remarkable that
the latest bright color that is general should be this deep, dark
scarlet and red, the intensest of colors. The ripest fruit of the year;
like the cheek of a hard, glossy, red apple from the cold Isle of
Orleans, which will not be mellow for eating till next spring! When I
rise to a hill-top, a thousand of these great Oak roses, distributed on
every side, as far as the horizon! I admire them four or five miles off!
This my unfailing prospect for a fortnight past! This late forest-flower
surpasses all that spring or summer could do. Their colors were but rare
and dainty specks comparatively, (created for the nearsighted, who walk
amid the humblest herbs and underwoods,) and made no impression on a
distant eye. Now it is an extended forest or a mountain-side, through or
along which we journey from day to day, that bursts into bloom.
Comparatively, our gardening is on a petty scale,--the gardener still
nursing a few asters amid dead weeds, ignorant of the gigantic asters
and roses, which, as it were, overshadow him, and ask for none of his
care. It is like a little red paint ground on a saucer, and held up