30 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



England. No hedges flanked the road, nor 

 ditches either ; for on each side was a broad 

 stretch of green grass divided by this white 

 ribbon of a road, and beyond the grass, tier 

 upon tier, rose oaks and beeches. It might 

 have been a valley in some distant, uninhabited 

 country, and the tropical, flaming patches of 

 herb-willow served but to heighten the illusion. 

 I lay down upon the grass by the roadside to 

 rest and to drink in the beauty of the valley. 

 Save for the flapping of the wings of the pigeons, 

 and the poignant cry of the plover, not a sound 

 was to be heard. . . . When I rose, greensward 

 and roadway were speckled with the white tufts 

 of the bobbing tails of countless rabbits, and 

 as I walked forward companies of them kept 

 retreating like an army at the sound of the 

 bugle. The sight was enough to stir the blood 

 of the most indifferent of poachers ! 



Grass grew avidly in the middle of the road. 

 It had time to grow, apparently, between the 

 going of one cart and the coming of the next. 

 I was not surprised to find when I reached 

 Hurstbourne Tarrant (which Cobbett used to 

 call Uphusband) that all the available accom- 

 modation had been taken by "the shooters 

 from London." 1 



It is generally assumed by townsmen that 

 the occupier of a farm must necessarily be a 

 practical man having some knowledge of farm- 



1 Vide The Awakening of England, by F. E. Green. 



