That will be the day for the now neglected west side of the island. The poetical prophecy,

' Westward the star of empire takes its way,'

and which is fast becoming historical truth, will receive another illustration." Much of this prediction has already been realized and a comparatively brief period in the future may be expected to work a wonderful transformation in the physiognomy of those portions of Westchester County which as yet have not assumed the distinctively urban character.

While the people of Westchester may felicitate themselves on the added prosperity and increase in

values of property which the change will involve, they will have to deplore the inevitable loss in picturesqueness, beauty and variety of interest which the county now presents to the eye in such eminent degree. Cities are ruthless destroyers of rural scenery. They fill up the bosky dells, demolish the picturesque crag and towering hill, mow down the lordly giants of the forest and annihilate the general aspect of rural loveliness and peace. The least sentimental of landowners must regret the inflow of urban population, when, as in Westchester, it involves the destruction of as lovely bits of landscape as the eye of man ever rested on. Traversed by picturesque ridges and romantic streams, with the blue expanse of Long Island Sound on the one side and the lordly Hudson on the other, the county is exceptionally favored by nature, and there is no strip of territory of equal extent in the whole country which combines in the same degree advantages of location and beauty of surface with the artificial adornments wrought in the lapse of many generations by intelligent direction and skill.