NATURE IN ENGLAND 31 



solid mass of foliage. The leaves are larger and less 

 feathery, and are crowded to the periphery of the 

 tree. Nearly every summer one of the trees, which 

 is most exposed, gets the leaves on one side badly 

 scorched. When the foliage begins to turn in the 

 fall, the trees appear as if they had been lightly 

 and hastily brushed with gold. The outer edges of 

 the branches become a light yellow, while, a little 

 deeper, the body of the foliage is still green. It is 

 this solid and sculpturesque character of the English 

 foliage that so fills the eye of the artist. The 

 feathery, formless, indefinite, not to say thin, aspect 

 of our leafage is much less easy to paint, and much 

 less pleasing when painted. 



The same is true of the turf in the fields and 

 upon the hills. The sward with us, even in the 

 oldest meadows, will wear more or less a ragged, 

 uneven aspect. The frost heaves it, the sun parches 

 it; it is thin here and thick there, crabbed in one 

 spot and fine and soft in another. Only by the 

 frequent use of a heavy roller, copious waterings, 

 and top-dressings, can we produce sod that ap- 

 proaches in beauty even that of the elevated sheep 

 ranges in England and Scotland. 



The greater activity and abundance of the earth- 

 worm, as disclosed by Darwin, probably has much 

 to do with the smoothness and fatness of those 

 fields when contrasted with our own. This little yet 

 mighty engine is much less instrumental in leaven- 

 ing and leveling the soil in New England than in 

 Old. The greater humidity of the mother country, 



