Page:Rural Hours.djvu/437

Rh apples have lain rotting on the grass, strawberries have filled the meadows, raspberries and blackberries have grown in every thicket, while the richer fruits of warmer climates, oranges, and peaches, and water-melons, have been selling for copper in our streets.

The only approach to anything like scarcity known here since the full settlement of the county, occurred some ten years since; but it was owing to no failure of the crops, no ungenial season, no untimely frost. During the summer of 1838, wheat-flour became scarce in the country, and all that could be procured here was of a very indifferent quality—grown wheat, such as we had never eaten before. It was during the period of infatuation of Western speculation, when many farmers had left their fields untilled, while they followed the speculating horde westward. At that moment, many houses in the county were seen deserted; some closed, others actually falling to ruin, and whole farms were lying waste, while their owners were running madly after wealth in the wilds of Michigan and Wisconsin. The same state of things was general throughout the country, and, united to speculations in wheat, was the occasion of a temporary difficulty. As yet, this has been the only occasion when anything like scarcity has been felt here.

Well, indeed, does it become us to render thanks for mercies so great, wholly unmerited as they are. As we pass from valley to valley, from one range of highlands to another, from broad and heaving plains to plains still broader, from the fresh waters of great rivers and inland seas to the salt waves of the ocean, everywhere, on either hand, the bounties of Providence fill the land; the earth is teeming with the richest of blessings. And yet, in what part of this broad land, from one utmost verge to the other,