The soil of the intervals is, of course, of the richest quality: there is, however, a material difference in their fertility. The parts which are lowest are commonly the best, as being the most frequently overflowed, and therefore most enriched by the successive deposits of slime. Of these parts, that division which is farthest down the river is the most productive, as consisting of finer particles, and being more plentifully covered with this manure. In the spring, these grounds are regularly overflowed. In the months of March and April, the snows, which in the northern parts of New England are usually deep, and the rains, which at this time of the year are generally copious, raise the river from fifteen to twenty feet, and extend the breadth of its waters in some places a mile and a half, or two miles. Almost all the slime conveyed down the current at this season is deposited on these lands; for here, principally, the water becomes quiescent, and permits the earthy particles to subside. This deposit is a rich manure. The lands dressed with it are preserved in their full strength, and being regularly enriched by the hand of nature, cannot but be highly valuable. The form of these lands is naturally beautiful. A river passing through them becomes almost, of course, winding. The border is necessarily curved, from the evenness of the impression of the river on a soft soil; and the edge is fringed with shrubs. A great part of them are formed into meadows, which are more profitable, and, at the same time, more agreeable to the eye than any other mode of culture. The magnificent elms, for which this country is remarkable, stand singly in the fields; while orchards and groves serve to break the uniformity. As they are seldom enclosed for miles together, there is a look also of extent and wildness about them, as if they produced their vegetation, “ploughed only by the sunbeams,” like a paradise spontaneously verdant and fertile. Valuable as these intervals on the Connecticut have become, they were bought cheaply enough by the first proprietors. One of the first settlers of the neighbourhood of Mount Tom, was a tailor, who, for a trifling consideration, purchased a tract on the river, forming a square of three miles on a side. A carpenter came to settle in the valley, and having constructed a rude wheelbarrow, the tailor offered him for it, _either a suit of clothes, or the whole of his land_! He accepted the latter, and became the possessor of one of the finest farms on the bank of the Connecticut. [Illustration] SILVER CASCADE, IN THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. * * * * *