1862.] EAST ANGLIAN BOTANY. 369 



deuied. He asked if we had not come from Lowestoft? This 

 we did not admit, but confessed that we had come from Yar- 

 mouth, or rather from London, solely desirous of seeing the native 

 productions of his beautiful marsh and heath-lands. 



The farmer had no sympathy with our admiration of rural 

 beauty, and complained that we, i. e. the fraternity, left the gates 

 open or unshut after passing through. This Avas the burden of 

 his charge against us. To this we pleaded not guilty, and for- 

 tunately we could do this with a good conscience, for the only 

 gate we had entered was close by, and through this his own 

 waggon had passed, and it was duly shut when he arrived. 



After telling us in not very civil terms that we were tres- 

 passers, which we could not deny, though we pleaded the inno- 

 cency of our pursuits, and appealed to his better feelings, at the 

 same time laying down the laws of kindness and courtesy, 

 whereby a passport is usually granted to the harmless members of 

 our brotherhood, — he told us that he did not understand these 

 laws of civility, and refused to admit their obligations. After 

 ofieriug many humble apologies for ovir ignorance, both of the 

 geography of the country and the churlishness of some of its in- 

 habitants, we took our leave, not without carrying away witli us 

 some disagreeable reminiscences of the ungraciousness of this 

 specimen of the farming portion of the men of Suffolk. It is 

 charitably to be hoped that he is a solitary sample of rustic rude- 

 ness, or that he is the representative of a very limited class. 



We are well aware that farmers, whose lands are exposed to the 

 ruthless inroads of the thoughtless population of our great towns, 

 have often but too much reason to complain that their gates are 

 left open, and their crops trampled down and wantonly injured. 

 But gentlemen who carry the vasculum are never liable to this 

 charge. They are too often indebted to the courtesy of the 

 owners and occupiers of land to be guilty of acts either of wan- 

 tonness or carelessness ; and this little episode is published as a 

 hint or a caution to the younger members of the confraternity, 

 to beware of leaving gates unshut, and to avoid as much as pos- 

 sible making gaps in hedges, trampling down grass about to be 

 mown, and breaking stalks of growing or ripe corn. 



From this fen, where we had seen the Sonchus and the Galeop- 

 sis, we traversed the heath in the direction of St. Olave^s station, 

 and in our way encountered a fine Sphagnum bog, but failed to 



N.S. VOL. VI. 3 B 



