ioo The Delights of Hedgerows. 



whereby hangs a tale or a curious fact or two. At 

 the extreme corner there of my hedge is a holly tree 

 of some height, which has been for long years left to 

 itself, undipped, untrimmed, and hangs at one side 

 right over into the field. Even that unwieldy holly 

 seems to stoop down to meet the grass and clover and 

 buttercups beneath ; and there is one other still more 

 peculiar circumstance to note. At a certain height it 

 ceases to have spines on the leaves, and preserves 

 them more highly by a foot or two on the side that 

 is towards the field than on the other towards the 

 house. Can the plant really know (from experience of 

 years) the side on which it is most exposed to cattle, 

 and so guards itself most resolutely at the right point ? 

 Certainly it is an economist and a soldier in its own 

 way a combination, after all, not so common. It 

 reserves all its points of defence for the parts where 

 they are really needed, and does not waste its powers. 

 I learn that Southey alone among poets has noticed 

 this fact, and set it in rhyme : 



" Below a circling fence of leaves is seen, 



Wrinkled and keen, 

 No grazing cattle through their prickly round 



Can reach to wound, 



But as they grow where nothing is to fear 

 Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.'"' 



Hedgerow timber, how much the landscape owes to 

 it ! How gracefully the oaks and beeches rise from 

 the deepened ridge where the road dips, their roots 

 sometimes showing bare in gnarled twisted clusters 

 towards the roadway, such as Dore often represents 

 and Millais magnifies ! I have in my mind an avenue, 

 where in summer, even in the hottest sun, there is 

 from this cause always coolness and a kind of soothing 



