Truly, Nature has been lavish in her
bestowal of rare gifts of scenic beauty at this place.
Standing there and looking out over the magnificent panorama
before us, we thought how often the eyes of that gentle lover of
Nature gazed in admiration out over the rolling hills or rested
lovingly upon some rare flower or strange bird until he gained
their secrets.
You will see many wonderful orchards in New York state and much
of the land is given over to the raising of fruit, for which it
seems admirably adapted. You will also notice other less
inviting regions, where the old homesteads have gone into decay.
In several places we saw many vacant homes around which crowded
whole armies of weeds, while scraggly, mossgrown apple trees
still managed to send forth a few green branches. It must have
been a scene like this which Shakespeare saw, when he wrote:
"The whole land is full of weeds; her fairest flowers
choked up,
Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined."
The crumbling moss-grown stones of the fences over which poison
vines were clambering and the myriads of wild carrot, chicory,
and ox-eye daisies added to the desolateness of the scene.
