their ingenuity, but it seems natural to like a farm or a garden beyond most workshops. It needs not to be a great agricultural establishment with scientific sheds and show dairies—for knowledge and experience are necessary to appreciate the merits of such a place;—a simple body, who goes to enjoy and not to criticise, will find enough to please him about any common farm, provided the goodman be sober and industrious, the housewife be neat and thrifty.
From the window of the room in which we were sitting, we looked over the whole of Mr. B——'s farm; the wheat-field, corn-field, orchard, potato-patch, and buckwheat-field. The farmer himself, with his wagon and horses, a boy and a man, were busy in a hay-field, just below the house; several cows were feeding in the meadow, and about fifty sheep were nibbling on the hillside. A piece of woodland was pointed out on the height above, which supplied the house with fuel. We saw no evergreens there; the trees were chiefly maple, birch, oak, and chestnut; with us, about the lake, every wood contains hemlock and pine.
Finding we were interested in rural matters, our good friend offered to show us whatever we wished to see, answering all our many questions with the sweet, old smile peculiar to herself. She took us to the little garden; it contained potatoes, cabbages, onions, cucumbers, and beans; a row of currant-bushes was the only fruit; a patch of catnep, and another of mint, grcAv in one corner. Our farmers, as a general rule, are proverbially indifferent about their gardens. There was no fruit on the place besides the apple-trees of the orchard; one is surprised that cherries, and pears, and plums, all suited to our hilly climate in this county, should not receive more attention; they yield a desirable
