"'So far as I am concerned, I like a good, long walk, and this is what I would recommend to all who work with the brain and are confined. Exercise should never, in my opinion, be taken before sitting down to work, always after the task of the day has been completed. Then one receives far more benefit from it than if taken before work. I also like to work in my garden, and there is hardly a better means of exercise. Hunting and fishing are also favorite sports with me, and I keep a good gun and a fishing-rod close at hand.' "'Have you entirely given up gardening for literature?' "'Yes, almost entirely, even in an amateur way. Of course I still retain an active interest in everything that is interesting or new about a garden or a farm. But as to any active participation, as formerly, I have been obliged to desist.' "It may be interesting here to mention that the grounds surrounding Mr. Roe's rural retreat at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson show no lack of proper care and attention. The property consists of twenty-three acres and is all cultivated for floral and farming purposes. The novelist has on these grounds alone over one hundred and twelve different varieties of grapes, and has had in his strawberry beds seventy different varieties of that luscious berry in bearing at one time. One year Mr. Roe's orchards yielded him, among other products, one hundred and fifty barrels of apples, and this year about forty bushels of pears will be taken from his trees. "'What are your immediate plans?' was asked the novelist, as he courteously showed the writer into the dining-room in response to the merry jingle of the dinner-bell. "'I am now taking a brief holiday, resting from overwork. In about two months I leave the North for Santa Barbara, California, where I may remain for a year, or may return next spring. All depends upon how my family and myself like the country there. I go there partly for pleasure and partly for work. I shall doubtless gather considerable new material, and this I shall incorporate in future works. I shall study the life of the people of that region, and intend more especially to devote myself to studying nature in the direction of trees, plants, as well as the animals, birds, etc., of that charming country. My return North is uncertain, as I have said, and should everything prove agreeable, I may extend my residence there indefinitely.'