262 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



questions about his draining, and boneing, and drilling, and dib- 

 bling, and very frankly acknowledging how much he has been able 

 to increase his crops with new-fashioned ways and new-fangled 

 implements. 



Then leaving the lane, we take a foot-path, which, crossing the 

 hedges by stiles, leads through old orchards, in all of which horses 

 and cattle are pasturing ; and there are beautiful swells of the 

 ground, and sometimes deep swales of richer green, with rushes 

 and willows growing at the bottom. Reaching a steeper hill-side, 

 we enter a large plantation of young forest trees, and soon pass 

 all at once into an older growth of larger and more thinly stand- 

 ing wood ; and near the top of this, find a clearing, where men 

 are making faggots of the brushwood, and stripping bark from the 

 larger sticks, and some little boys and girls are picking up chips 

 and putting them into sacks. 



We reach another lane and cultivated fields, and, being on 

 elevated ground, at the gnarly feet of a gray, old beech-tree, lay 

 down, and, looking back upon the extensive landscape, tell our 

 friend in what it differs from American scenery. 



The chief peculiarity of the English landscape is found in the 

 frequent long, graceful lines of deep green hedges and hedge-row 

 timber, crossing hill, valley, and plain in every direction ; and in 

 the occasional large trees, dotting the broad fields, either singly 

 or in small groups, left to their natural open growth, (for ship- 

 timber, and, while they stand, for cattle shades,) therefore 

 branching low and spreading wide, and more beautiful, much 

 more beautiful, than we allow our trees to make themselves. 

 The less frequent brilliancy of broad streams or ponds of water, 

 also distinguishes the prospect from those to which we are most 

 accustomed, though there are often small brooks or pools, and 

 much marshy land, and England may be called a well-watered 

 country. In the foreground you will notice the quaint buildings, 



