ripen; on some farms, they are harvesting both crops—red buckwheat sheaves, and withered corn-stalks, are standing about the fields. All through the summer months, the maize-fields are beautiful with their long glossy leaves; but when ripe, dry and colorless, they will not compare with the waving lawns of other grains. The golden ears, however, after the husk has been taken off, are perhaps the noblest heads of grain in the world; the rich piles now lying about the fields are a sight to rejoice the farmer's heart.
The great pumpkins, always grown with maize, are also lying ripening in the sun; as we have had no frost yet, the vines are still green. When they are harvested and gathered in heaps, the pumpkins rival the yellow corn in richness; and a farm-wagon carrying a load of husked corn and pumpkins, bears as handsome a load of produce as the country yields. It is a precious one, too, for the farmer and his flocks.
Cattle are very fond of pumpkins; it is pleasant to see what a feast the honest creatures make of them in the barn-yard; they evidently consider them a great dainty, far superior to common provender. But in this part of the world, not only the cattle, but men, women, and children—we all eat pumpkins. Yesterday, the first pumpkin-pie of the season made its appearance on table. It seems rather strange, at a first glance, that in a country where apples, and plums, and peaches, and cranberries abound, the pumpkin should be held in high favor for pies. But this is a taste which may probably be traced back to the early colonists; the first housewives of New England found no apples or quinces in the wilderness; but pumpkins may have been raised the first summer after they landed at Plymouth. At any rate, we know that
