is a breath which tells of the rich strawberry far down among the
shadowy grass. The birds during the hot months of summer have no song,
but there are numbers of them, and of the brightest plumage. The fairy
humming-bird, often in size no larger than a bee, gleams through the air
like a flower with wings, and the bald eagle sits majestically on the
old grey pines, which stand like lone monuments of the past, the storms
and the lightnings having ages ago wreaked their worst upon them, and
bereft them of life and limb, yet still they stand, all lofty and
unscathed by the axe or the fire which has laid the younger forest low.
The dwellings, either the primitive log-hut, the first home of the
settler, or the more stately frame-buildings, stand each near the road,
on the verge of its own clearing, which reaches back to where the dark
woods form a back-ground to the scene. These stretch far and wide over
the land, save where appears, amid their density, some lonely settlement
or improvement of adventurous emigrant. Those little spots, of how much
importance to their owners, yet seem as nothing amid the vast forest.
Each dwelling in this country is in itself a theme for study and
interest. Here, on one side, is the home of an English settler--amid all
the bustle and chopping and burning of a new farm, he has found time to
plant a few fruit trees, and has now a flourishing young orchard, and a
garden wherein are herbs of "fragrant smell and spicy taste," to give a
warm relish to the night's repast. For the cultivation of a garden the
natives, unless the more opulent of them, seem to care little; and
outside the dwelling of a blue nose there is little to be seen, unless
it be a cucumber bed among the chips, or a patch of Indian corn. Again,
the Scotch settlers may be known by the taste shown in selecting a
garden spot--a gentle declivity, sloping to a silvery stream, by which
stand a few household trees that he has permitted to remain--beneath
them a seat is placed, and in some cherished spot, watched over with the
tenderest care, is an exotic sprig of heath or broom. About the