Thus the doctor; and amid this and the like conversation we walked over an orchard covering forty acres.  The eight thousand trees it contained yielded annually five thousand bushels of choice apples and eight thousand of the finest pears, and the crop increased yearly.  The doctor pointed out repeatedly the excellence of his culture in contrast with the American mode, which leaves the weeds to grow undisturbed among the trees, and disregards entirely all regularity and beauty.  He, on the contrary, insisted no less on embellishment than on neatness and order; and this was no vain boast.  Carefully-kept walks led through the grounds; verdant turf, flowerbeds and charming shady arbors met us at every turn; there were long beds planted with flourishing currant, raspberry and blackberry bushes, and large tracts set with rows of bearing vines, on which luscious grapes hung invitingly.  Order also reigned among the fruit trees:  here were several acres of nothing but apples, again a plantation of pears or apricots, beneath which not a weed was to be seen:  the hoe and the rake had done their work thoroughly.  Everything was in the most perfect order:  the courtgardener of a German prince might have been proud of it.

We seated ourselves in a shady arbor, where the doctor entertained us further with an account of his religious belief.  He had, he said, no fixed creed and no established religion:  there were in the colony Protestants, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, indeed Christians of every name, and even Jews.  Every one was at liberty to hold what faith he pleased:  he preached only natural religion, and whoever shaped his life according to that would be happy.  After this he enlarged on the prosperity of the colony, which was founded on the principles of natural religion, and prosed about humility, love to our neighbor, kindness and carrying religion into everything; and then back he came to Nature and himself, until my head was perfectly bewildered.  I had given up long before this, in despair, any questions as to the interior organization of the colony, for the doctor either gave me evasive answers or none at all.  His colonists, he asserted, loved him as a father, and he cared for them accordingly:  both these assertions were undoubtedly true.  The deep respect with which those whom we occasionally met lifted their hats to “the doctor”—­a form of greeting by no means universal in America—­bore witness to their unbounded esteem for him.  Toward us also they demeaned themselves with great respect, as to noble strangers whom the doctor deigned to honor with his society.  As to his care for them, no one who witnessed it could deny the exceedingly flourishing condition of the settlement.  Whether, however, in all this the doctor had not a keen eye to his own interest was an afterthought which involuntarily presented itself.