60 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sary variety of opinion exists on a subject, no special uniform plan 

 could be adopted, nor would this be desirable. In certain localities, 

 and under certain circumstances, the entire absence of all artificial 

 boundaries might contribute to the embellishment of the public ways 

 by the air of refinement and elegance thus produced. 



The borders of all roads, especially in the neighborhood of large 

 towns and villages, should be kept with neatness and with some 

 regard to aesthetic principles. There seems to be an almost entire 

 want of attention to these matters in most of our communities. 

 We not unfrequently see large and small estates maintained with 

 great care and even elegance, within their immediate limits, whilst 

 the roadsides which bound them are neglected and allowed to be- 

 come the receptacle for filth and rubbish. Every proprietor should 

 take an interest in the public welfare, so far certainly as concerns 

 the neatness and general appearance of the highway bordering upon 

 his estate. And this resolves itself into the adoption of very hum- 

 ble measures, being nothing more than a nicely kept greensward, a 

 healthy condition of hedges, trees, and shrubs ; the perfect order of 

 fences and walls, and the absence of everything that may offend the 

 sight. 



Mr. Mitchell, in his charming book, " My Farm of Edgewood," 

 in speaking of the Besthetics of the farmer's business says : " Here 

 and there we come upon a certain neatness and order in enclosures, 

 buildings, and fields, but ten to one the keeping of the picture is 

 absolutely ruined by the slatternly condition of the highway, to 

 which, though it pass within ten feet of his door, the farmer by 

 a strange inconsequence, pays no manner of heed. He makes it 

 the receptacle of all waste material, and foists upon the public the 

 ofial which he will not tolerate within the limits of his enclosure. 

 And the highway purveyors are mostly as brutally unobservant of 

 neatness as the farmer himself; nay, thej^ seem to put an officious 

 pride into the unseemliness and rawness of their work, and it is 

 only by most persistent watchfulness that I have been able to pre- 

 vent some bullet-headed road-mender from digging into the tuif- 

 slopes at my very door." 



In our remarks, we have had our own commonwealth more espe- 

 cially in view. If she, in her general superiority, is so lamentably 

 deficient in the condition of her highways, what can be said of the 

 other older states. We will leave those to answer who can do so 

 from their own experience, merely premising that we are not at all 



