As soon as you have ridden, or walked--it is better to walk if there is plenty of time--beyond the fine elms of the ancient Flushing streets, you will be in as peaceful looking farming country as can be found anywhere. But the interesting thing about it is that here are seen not merely a few incongruous green patches that happen to be left between rapidly devouring suburban towns--like the fields near Woodside where the German women work--out here one rides through acre after acre of it, farm after farm, mile after mile, up hill, down hill, corn-fields, wheat-fields, stone fences, rail fences, no fences, and never a town in sight, much less anything to suggest the city, except the procession of market-wagons at certain hours, to or from College Point Ferry, and they aren't so conspicuously urban after all. [Illustration: Remains of a windmill in New York City, Between Astoria and Steinway.] Even the huge advertising sign-boards which usually shout to passers-by along the approaches to cities are rather scarce in this country, for it is about midway between two branches of the only railroad on Long Island, and there is no need for a trolley. There is nothing but country roads, with more or less comfortable farm-houses and large, squatty barns; not only old farm-houses, but what is much more striking, farm-houses that are new. Now, it does seem odd to build a new farm-house in a city. [Illustration: The Dreary Edge of Long Island City.] Out in the fields the men are ploughing. A rooster crows in the barn-yard. A woman comes out to take in the clothes. Children climb the fence to gaze when people pass by. And one can ride for a matter of miles and see no other kind of life, except the birds in the hedge and an occasional country dog, not suburban dogs, but distinctly farm dogs, the kind that have deep, ominous barks, as heard at night from a distance. By and by, down the dusty, sunny, lane-like road plods a fat old family Dobbin, pulling an old-fashioned phaëton in which are seated a couple of prim old maiden ladies, dressed in black, who try to make him move faster in the presence of strangers, and so push and jerk animatedly on the reins, which he enjoys catching with his tail, and holds serenely until beyond the bend in the road. [Illustration: The Procession of Market-wagons at College Point Ferry.]