We mount again, and, passing through a couple of loosely made and carelessly hung gates, we enter the big pasture. Not very much grass in it; it is wet, low-lying, undrained land. The wild-rose bushes are scattered here, there, and everywhere in clumps, and the face of the field is strewed with the dull, light-green, thick and hairy leaves of a wild sunflower, whose bright-yellow flowers with a brown center, all hanging as if too heavy for the stalk, have not yet matured. The cattle are very fond of this plant, and do well on it. An enemy of theirs is the lupin, here called the larkspur, one of the earliest of spring plants. Its handsome, dark-blue flowers do not redeem it, for the cattle are deceived by it, eat, and are seized with staggers, and will sink down and die if not seen to and treated. One of our friends tells us that he cures his larkspur-poisoned cattle with fat pork, lumps of which he stuffs down their throats. This information we submit to an unprejudiced public, but we do not guarantee that this remedy will cure. It is generally two-year-old cattle which partake and sicken--perhaps the calves have not enterprise enough, and the older cattle too much sense. The plant is not so very common, but it has to be watched for and extirpated when found. Between the pasture and the wheat-fields stands another snake-fence and a gate. Alas! by the gate, and to be crossed before we reach it, is the Slough of Despond--a big, deep, uncompromising pool of black, sticky mud. The horses eye it doubtfully, and put down their noses to try if it smells better than it looks, and then step gravely in, girth-high almost, till we open and force back the heavy gate. Skirting the wheat-field, between it and the creek, hardly seen for the undergrowth of rose-bushes and hazel, with here and there a big oak-tree, the road brings us out into a patch of garden-ground, filled with vegetables for the town housekeepers. Just now there is little to be seen but some rows of early peas and spring cabbage. Later on, the long beds of onions, French beans, cauliflowers, and all the rest, with the melons, squashes, or vegetable marrows, pumpkins, cucumbers, and tomatoes (which were the glory of the gardener), showed the full advantages of the irrigating ditches, fed by the higher spring, which are led here, there, and everywhere through the patch. For, remember, we had almost continuous fine weather, with hot sun and few showers, from the middle of May till the middle of October. [Sidenote: _THE CARDWELL HILL._]