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"EARTH "-STOPPING. 



AMONG the various changes upon the aspect of a 

 Farm, necessitated by modern practice, there is 

 none which causes a greater degree of consternation 

 in the immediate vicinity, than the removal of the 

 Hedgerows. There is a kind of time-honored recog- 

 nition and respect accorded to these huge "mounds," 

 four or five feet high, and broad in proportion, with 

 the running accompaniment of Jungle sprawling 

 at its pleasure into the plough-land alongside, which 

 it goes to the very heart of the laborers themselves 

 to desecrate, or reduce to the regulation-standard. 

 It is all very well under the glowing candle-light, 

 with the map of your farm spread out before you, 

 and its hedgerows reduced to mere lines of sepia 

 or lamp-black, to cut and carve, at your will, ten 

 or twelve large square comely-looking fields out 

 of thirty or forty unaccountably-shaped rhomboids 



