260 JLV AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



Shady Lanes Rural Sketches Herefordshire and Monmouthshire Scene- 

 ry Points of Difference in English and American Landscapes Visit 

 to a Farm-House The Mistress The Farm-House Garden A Stout 

 Old English Farmer The Stables and Stock Turnip Culture Sheep 

 Wheat Hay Rents Prices A Parting Cider. 



off the main road soon after leaving Hereford, we 

 pursued our way, guided by the gentleman who had so kindly 

 entertained us, for several miles through narrow by-ways. It 

 was a rarely clear, bright, sunshiny afternoon, and while on the 

 broad highway we had found, for the first time in England, the 

 temperature of the air more than comfortably warm. The more 

 agreeable were the lanes ; narrow, deep, and shady, often not 

 wider than the cart-track, and so deep, that the grassy banks on 

 each side were higher than our heads ; our friend could not ex- 

 plain how or why they were made so, but probably it was by the 

 rain washing through them for centuries. On the banks were 

 thickly scattered the flowers of heart's-ease, forget-me-not, and 

 wild strawberries ; above, and out of them, grew the hawthorn 

 hedges in thick, but wild and wilsome verdure, and pushing out 

 of this, and stretching over us, often the branches mingling over 

 our heads and shutting out the sky clear beyond the next turn, 

 so we seemed walking in a bower, thick old apple and pear trees 



