144- A Journey to London in 1840. 



understood by a Scot. Nay, there is for miles in succession 

 scarcely an undulation. The various rivulets which we crossed 

 were quite indolent like the Arar of Cassar, which flows, says he, 

 incredibili lenitaie ita tit oculis in utram partem jiitat, judicari non 

 possit. They had not the picturesque and poetical character of 

 our transparent, rapid, gurgling, pebbly streams in Scotland. 

 But the grass was far more verdant than ours, the pasture more 

 rich, the trees more umbrageous, at least their leaves seemed 

 broader and had a healthier tint. The English besides are in- 

 finitely fonder of trees. I saw no dense plantations, with one or 

 two slight exceptions, such as we have in the north, yet the whole 

 country looked like a continuous forest. The hedgerows are 

 decorated with trees nearly as close as thev could healthily grow, 

 at least their number could not easily be doubled. The fields are 

 exceedingly small, sometimes not above one or two acres, and in 

 Warwickshire their average size is only ten acres. Hence it is 

 that the hedgerows being full of trees the whole country is con- 

 tinuously wooded and appears to the tra\eller as if he were pass- 

 ing through a grove. The English taste in managing their trees 

 is different from ours. We allow them to grow as nature deter- 

 mines except in or near a gentleman's pleasure grounds. We 

 think they cannot be too umbrageous or spread their branches too 

 widely. So the English think in some cases, such as on a lawn 

 or in an avenue. But the trees in the hedgerows and along the 

 highways are all "jiollards," that is they have been polled or 

 lopped. The truth is they are deprived entirely of their branches 

 and present nothing but a bald stem, except a tuft at the top which 

 is allowed to flourish. These pollards, which are almost unknown 

 in Scotland, prevail more or less through every part of England 

 known to me. Whether this polling or lopping be the result of 

 taste or whether it emanates from economy I cannot say. By 

 econoni}' I mean in this case the pleasure of having trees and yet 

 by lopping off the branches still to retain abundance of sunlight 

 and ventilation. But whatever be the cause the fact is certain. 

 Not only are our southern friends excessively fond of trees, but 

 the unusual svstem of pollards is peculiar to them. Though the 

 hedgerows are beautified by trees in almost every case are they 

 rude, inelegant, and inefficient as a fence. The English adopt this 

 kind of fence because, generally speaking, they have no stone: 

 wherever thev have stone, as in \-arious parts of Gloucestershire, 



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