72 THE FLOKIST. 



as free 'from weeds as the best-managed gentleman's garden. Some 

 of our cold clays, fit only for growing oak-timber, will, I fear, never 

 pay for arable cultivation under a free-trade competition ; and these 

 our squires may plant as soon as they like for the benefit of their 

 descendants in the year 2050. Perhaps also some of our thin chalky 

 downs, intended for the production of South-Down mutton, may as 

 well return to their natural beauty, and the uses for which Providence 

 designed them ; but I cannot believe that the cultivation of the soil 

 generally in civilised England will ever be allowed to decline. Not 

 far from my residence, the " Sandy gardeners," a hardy race of men, 

 cultivate small plots of ground, and take their produce in one-horse 

 carts a distance of fifty miles to the London market. Their land is 

 curious for its minute cultivation, and produces a rent of 41. per 

 acre ; the air all around is redolent of onions, cucumbers are grown 

 by the acre, and the country is so studded with cottages, and swarm- 

 ing with labourers, that you might fancy yourself in the populous 

 regions of China. When the Great Northern Railway, which passes 

 through the midst of tiiis fertile district, is completed, no doubt a 

 still greater impetus will be given to cultivation, and the vegetable 

 wealth will be directed north and south in still more copious 

 streams. 



But to return to Old Godfrey, his garden-house and furniture. 

 As times have improved with him, he has erected a respectable build- 

 ing, with good casement-windows, in place of the old tumble-down 

 hovel in which, a few years ago, he stowed his movables. It is 

 curious to sit down and look round upon the place and its owner ; 

 it might furnish an artist with a study for Robinson Crusoe : look 

 at our sketch, which certainly is not flattering, for Godfrey has 

 never sacrificed to the Graces ; the rough thatch of his shaggy 

 uncombed locks shades a forehead wrinkled 



" by thinking of his whens and hows, 

 And half by knitting of his brows 

 Beneath the glaring sun." 



His eye — for unfortiinately he has but one — is small, bright, and sa- 

 gacious ; and he is gifted with a smooth, easy way of expressing his 

 ideas, and a quiet self possessed manner, which many a gentleman 

 born would envy. How characteristic are all the surrounding ob- 

 jects ! From the ceihng hang ropes of the finest onions ; his garden- 

 seeds, in bags of various sizes, make a goodly show ; all about are 

 placed every kind of implement, traps, nets, and all sorts of inde- 

 scribable tackle : here an old garden-knife, which, like the dagger of 

 Hudibras, " can bait a mouse-trap or toast bread ;" there his double- 

 barrel gun, in good order, with its percussion- caps, ready for use at a 

 moment's notice ; in a corner, perhaps, crouches a well-bred pointer 

 or setter-bitch, with her litter of puppies, soon, under skilful train- 

 ing, to be well broken, and fit for the sportsman's use ; outside, a 

 snug pig-sty is sure to contain a sow of the best breed the country 

 produces ; and his potato-pits are stored with the most approved 

 varieties. vThe great peculiarity of Old Godfrey is, that whatever he 

 does, he does so -well ; the hawthorn hedge round his garden is the 



