J32 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



NOTES ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING, 



I. 



The earth has a way of absorbing things that are 

 j^laced upon it, of drawing from them their stiff 

 individuality of newness, and throwing over them 

 something of her own antiquity. As the furrow 

 smoothes and brightens the share, as the mist eats 

 away the sharpness of the iron angles, so, in a larger 

 manner, the machines sent forth to conquer the soil 

 are conquered by it, become a part of it, and as natural 

 as the old, old scythe and reaping-hook. Thus already 

 the new agriculture has grown hoar. 



The oldest of the modern implements is the 

 threshing-machine, which is historic, for it was once 

 the cause of rural war. There are yeomanry-men still 

 living who remember how they rode about at night 

 after the rioters, guided by the blazing bonfires 

 kindled to burn the new-fangled things. Much blood 

 — of John Barleycorn — was spilt in that campaign; 

 and there is many a farmer yet hearty who recollects 

 the ale-barrels being rolled up into the rickyards and 

 there broached in cans and buckets, that the rebels, 

 propitiated with plentiful liquor, might forbear to 

 set fire to the ricks or sack the homestead. Such 



