HIGH FARMING. 237 



be there again for one ten years, nor the tree for a century. 

 On this subject we will not trust ourselves, but will hand 

 over Mr. Pusey to the tender mercies of William John- 

 ston, barrister-at-law, who, in two volumes full of varied 

 and useful information, has undertaken to hand down to 

 posterity " England as it is in the Middle of the Nine- 

 teenth Century:" 



" One great charm in the general tone of the English 

 landscape arises from the abundance of timber all over the 

 face of the cultivated land. From one end of the civilized 

 world to the other, the hedge-rows and hedge-row timber 

 of England have been, and are, the admiration of the tra- 

 veller. A great destruction of this timber is, however, 

 now in progress, and it appears likely to increase. In 

 order successfully to compete with foreign farmers, who 

 are now as free to bring their produce into English mar- 

 kets as English farmers are, scientific agriculturists declare 

 that it is expedient to make our fields larger and more 

 open to sun and rain, by removing hedges and fences; that 

 the shade of trees is injurious to the ripening of grain, 

 and therefore that they should be removed ; that timber- 

 smothered land is a reproach to scientific and economical 

 farming ; that to keep pace with the advancement of agri- 

 cultural knowledge, and to meet the activity and compe- 

 tition of the age, the hedge-rows, which have heretofore 

 been considered the beauty of England, must, from consi- 

 derations of utility, be abandoned ; that land must be 

 looked on as nothing else than a manufactory of agricul- 

 tural produce ; and that farmers who think of anything 

 else than profit are little better than fools. Such are the 

 theories of those who bring the wisdom of city counting- 

 houses or scientific lecture-rooms to bear upon rural 

 affairs." 



But the case is more hopeless than even Mr. Johnston 

 states it to be. The heartless wisdom which calculates 

 that the hedges in one parish in Devonshire would have 

 reached "from London to Edinburgh," and exults that 



