WAYSIDE SHRUBBERY. 81 



Nature is a young damsel with her hair tied up in knots 

 and papers, as distinguished from one whose tresses hang 

 down her neck in careless freedom. 



They will tell you that wild shrubbery harbors vermin/ 

 and that its intricacy affords them shelter, which is not 

 provided by a formal hedge-row. But if it harbors in- 

 sects, it protects also the birds that feed upon them ; if 

 it causes the multiplication of small quadrupeds, it sup- 

 plies also the mast that sustains them. In proportion as 

 the thicket has been eradicated from the borders of fields 

 and waysides, the insects that destroy our crops have in- 

 creased ; for the birds that once found protection within 

 it have fled to distant places, and left the insects to com- 

 mit their ravages unmolested. 



There is a certain kind of beauty in high cultivation ; 

 there is still more in neatness and simplicity; there is 

 even a sort of relative beauty in baldness, when it is 

 plainly necessary to make a free and convenient passage 

 for a constantly moving crowd. There is no man who 

 cannot appreciate the beauty of a well-tilled farm, nor is 

 there one who would prefer rubbish and litter to neatly 

 dressed paths and borders. But if it be a question 

 whether the perfect smoothness and baldness of a grav- 

 elled walk, weeded of every bush and herb, is more in- 

 teresting than the rustic negligence of another walk, 

 covered with a variety of shrubs and vines, and inter- 

 sected by a footpath worn by the feet of men and ani- 

 mals, there are but few, even among the most sordid, who 

 would not prefer the neglected pathway. For is it nothing 

 to us that the singing-birds should find a bushy knoll to 

 nestle in, or a leafy perch to rest upon when they sing 

 to the passing traveller? Is it nothing to us that we 

 may gather a few violets under a hazel-bush for the little 

 child we lead by the hand ? Is it nothing to the young 

 maiden that she can loiter by the roadside, in quest of 



