Foot Notes; Or, Walking as a Fine Art

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1875. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... viii. have observed that people like to glance at the contents of a basket brought home by the excursionists who have spent a day in the woods, or at the glen, or on the mountain. Curious pebbles, greasy scraps of paper, leaves from unfamiliar species of trees, bits of bread, wild flowers which for some cause were deemed worthy of plucking and are carefully done up in grass or leaves, fragments of crackers, and corners of rock knocked off and picked up for good geological reasons. I have also noticed that a pedestrian brings home another basket filled with things that he is in no haste to exhibit. For it may be filled with homely stuff of which he is a little ashamed, or it may hold some gay trifles very interesting to himself but utterly worthless to any one else; trifles which like butterflies will suffer a great deal by handling for exhibition. When I get home I like to sit down and see what I have collected in my basket, and empty it with a leisurely reflectiveness. It often happens that things come out much changed from what they were when first picked tip and put in: they are sometimes inclined to grow. To-day I found in my basket a picture, an experience, a thought, and some facts pertaining to skunk-cabbage. I have been in nineteen of the States, but Connecticut is the only one that has taken the trouble to make me acquainted with this potent herb. Skunk-cabbage (Symplocarpus fcetidits is an herbaceous perennial that delights in wet places; still, I have found it growing thriftily on an apron of gravel washed out into a swamp from the adjacent knolls. It does well in the wet pastures and meadows; but it appears to prefer a shady situation. I sometimes find an acre of it growing in the woods along the Quinnipiac, where the grasses have not crept in. These...