Originally trained as an architect, Cropsey constructed the elements of this panoramic landscape as he might a design for a building; that is, for the comfort of human inhabitants. The artist gently leads the viewer into the composition across the rolling meadow, to the thick forest with trees in full leaf, to the high mountain range in the distance. The shape of the largest mountain resembles that in a painting, Vermont Scenery, that Cropsey exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1853.