Unroll the world's map, and look upon the great northern continent ofAmerica. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun, away beyondmany a far meridian, let your eyes wander. Rest them where golden riversrise among peaks that carry the eternal snow. Rest them there.You are looking upon a land whose features are un-furrowed by humanhands, still bearing the marks of the Almighty mould, as upon the morningof creation; a region whose every object wears the impress of God's image.His ambient spirit lives in the silent grandeur of its mountains, and speaks inthe roar of its mighty rivers: a region redolent of romance, rich in the realityof adventure.Follow me, with the eye of your mind, through scenes of wild beauty, ofsavage sublimity.I stand in an open plain. I turn my face to the north, to the south, to theeast, and to the west; and on all sides behold the blue circle of the heavensgirdling around me. Nor rock, nor tree, breaks the ring of the horizon. Whatcovers the broad expanse between? Wood? water? grass? No; flowers. As faras my eye can range, it rests only on flowers, on beautiful flowers!I am looking as on a tinted map, an enamelled picture brilliant with everyhue of the prism.Yonder is golden yellow, where the helianthus turns her dial-like face to thesun. Yonder, scarlet, where the malva erects its red banner. Here is aparterre of the purple monarda, there the euphorbia sheds its silver leaf.Yonder the orange predominates in the showy flowers of the asclepia; andbeyond, the eye roams over the pink blossoms of the cleome.The breeze stirs them. Millions of corollas are waving their gaudy standards.The tall stalks of the helianthus bend and rise in long undulations, likebillows on a golden sea.They are at rest again. The air is filled with odours sweet as the perfumes ofAraby or Ind. Myriads of insects flap their gay wings: flowers of themselves.The bee-birds skirr around, glancing like stray sunbeams; or, poised onwhirring wings, drink from the nectared cups; and the wild bee, with laden 6limbs, clings among the honeyed pistils, or leaves for his far hive with a songof joy.Who planted these flowers? Who hath woven them into these picturedparterres? Nature. It is her richest mantle, richer in its hues than the scarfsof Cashmere.This is the "weed prairie." It is misnamed. It is "the garden of God."The scene is changed. I am in a plain as before, with the unbroken horizoncircling around me. What do I behold? Flowers? No; there is not a flower insight, but one vast expanse of living verdure. From north to south, from eastto west, stretches the prairie meadow, green as an emerald, and smooth asthe surface of a sleeping lake.