Fruits and Flowers of Maryland and Virginia--Copper-head Snake--Insects--Elections Our summer in Maryland, (1830), was delightful.

The thermometer stood at 94, but the heat was by no means so oppressive as what we had felt in the West.

In no part of North America are the natural productions of the soil more various, or more beautiful.
Strawberries of the richest flavour sprung beneath our feet; and when these past away, every grove, every lane, every field looked like a cherry orchard, offering an inexhaustible profusion of fruit to all who would take the trouble to gather it.

Then followed the peaches; every hedgerow was planted with them, and though the fruit did not equal in size or flavour those ripened on our garden walls, we often found them good enough to afford a delicious refreshment on our long rambles.

But it was the flowers, and the flowering shrubs that, beyond all else, rendered this region the most beautiful I had ever seen, (the Alleghany always excepted.) No description can give an idea of the variety, the profusion, the luxuriance of them.