in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw
material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems
of primitive forest trees.

Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated
fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and
quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for
some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently
found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of
impermeable and unfathomable bog--a natural sink in one corner of
it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my
subsistence from the swamps which surround my native town than
from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no richer
parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda
(Cassandra calyculata) which cover these tender places on the
earth's surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names
of the shrubs which grow there--the high blueberry, panicled
andromeda, lambkill, azalea, and rhodora--all standing in the
quaking sphagnum. I often think that I should like to have my
house front on this mass of dull red bushes, omitting other
flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce and trim box, even
graveled walks--to have this fertile spot under my windows, not a
few imported barrowfuls of soil only to cover the sand which was
thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my
parlor, behind this plot, instead of behind that meager
assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and
Art, which I call my front yard? It is an effort to clear up and
make a decent appearance when the carpenter and mason have
departed, though done as much for the passer-by as the dweller
within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable