88 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XI. 



SHADY LANES. RURAL SKETCHES. HEREFORDSHIRE AND MONMOUTHSHIRE 



SCENERY. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LAND 

 SCAPES. VISIT TO A FARM-HOUSE. THE MISTRESS. THE FARM-HOUSE 



GARDEN. A STOUT OLD ENGLISH FARMER. THE STABLES AND STOCK. 



TURNIP CULTURE. SHEEP. WHEAT. HAY. RENTS.- PRICES. A PART 

 ING. CIDER. 



E soon turned off the main road, and pursued our way for 

 several miles by narrow, deep, shady lanes, our con 

 ductor giving us much information about the agriculture of the 

 district and the habits and character of the people, ever and 

 anon, also, finding occasion from some incident or spectacle that 

 engaged our attention, for instructive and godly discourse, in, 

 such a way as I have endeavoured to show his habit in the 

 last chapter ; not tediously, and to the interruption of other 

 thoughts and conversation, but naturally and cheerfully. 



It was a rarely clear, bright, sunshiny afternoon, and while 

 on the broad highway we found, for the first time in England, 

 the temperature of the air more than comfortably warm. 

 The more agreeable were the lanes ; narrow, deep, and shady, 

 as I said, often not wider than the cart-track, and so deep, 

 that the grassy banks on each side were higher than our 

 heads; our friend could not explain how or w T hy they were 

 made so, but probably it was by the rain washing through 

 them for centuries. On the banks, too, were thickly scattered 

 the flowers of heart s-ease, forget-me-not, and wild straw 

 berries ; above, and out of them, grew the hawthorn hedges 



