This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V22", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
Our own swamps and low grounds are displaying attractive pictures for us to treasure in our memories of these autumn clays, and bring forth to brighten a dismal cold evening in winter. There is one that I recall now, seen only a few days since, a low meadow with steep hills on either side, overgrown with willows, alders, sweet gum, and other of our forest trees. There is one branch of gum that has turned a rich dark purple, while the rest of the tree is still green; over an alder bush the wild clematis has climbed and thrown a spray directly on the purple branch of gum. This falls like a grey mist, sparkling with dew drops made brilliant by the morning sun. None of our wild climbers are as graceful and beautiful as the clematis, first with its perfectly formed clusters of white flowers, with just a tint of sea-green color in them, and then later on, as I saw them on the alder, when the flowers had fallen and left the mist-like clusters of seed in their places. Looking far up to the end of the meadow we see the true morning mist rising from the wet ground and rolling upward in a golden cloud, as the sunlight seems to dance against its billowy masses, and then to fall back in a shower of gold on waving heads of golden rod, brightened here and there with bunches of crimson, velvet-like cardinal flowers.
At the foot of the hill, on the western side of the meadow, the trees are literally covered with grape vines and Virginia creepers. From the first, large clusters of purple grapes hang temptingly among the cool green leaves, and the creepers show amid scarlet and green leaves, bunches of dark blue berries on red stems, that give them a poisonous appearance. Here, too, a variety of beautiful native grasses may be found and used for winter decoration. But feeling sure that I am giving only a dim idea of the beauties of "Nature's Picture Gallery," I will give up the attempt.