o leave some portions of the
State to the curiosity of future excursionists.

But so much was said about Hickory Nut Gap that a visit to it could not
be evaded. The Gap is about twenty-four miles southeast of Asheville. In
the opinion of a well-informed colonel, who urged us to make the trip,
it is the finest piece of scenery it this region. We were brought up on
the precept "get the best," and it was with high anticipations that we
set out about eleven o'clock one warm, foggy morning. We followed a very
good road through a broken, pleasant country, gradually growing wilder
and less cultivated. There was heavy rain most of the day on the hills,
and occasionally a shower swept across our path. The conspicuous object
toward which we traveled all the morning was a shapely conical hill at
the beginning of the Gap.

At three o'clock we stopped at the Widow Sherrill's for dinner. Her
house, only about a mile from the summit, is most picturesquely situated
on a rough slope, giving a wide valley and mountain view. The house
is old rambling, many-roomed, with wide galleries on two sides. If
one wanted a retired retreat for a few days, with good air and fair
entertainment, this could be commended. It is an excellent fruit region;
apples especially are sound and of good flavor. That may be said of all
this part of the State. The climate is adapted to apples, as the hilly
part of New England is. I fancy the fruit ripens slowly, as it does in
New England, and is not subject to quick decay like much of that grown
in the West. But the grape also can be grown in all this mountain
region. Nothing but lack of enterprise prevents any farmer from enjoying
abundance of fruit. The industry carried on at the moment at the Widow
Sherrill's was the artificial drying of apples for the market. The
apples are pared, cored, and sliced in spirals, by machinery, and
dried on tin sheets in a patented machine. The industry appears to be a
profitable one hereabouts, and is about the only one that calls in the
aid of invention.

While our dinner was preparing, we studied the well-known pictures of
"Jane" and "Eliza," the photographs of Confederate boys, who had
never returned from the war, and the relations, whom the traveling
photographers always like to pillory in melancholy couples, and some
stray volumes of the Sunday-school Union. Madame Sherrill, who carries
on the farm since the death of her husband, is a woman of strong and
liberal mind, who i