ADVICE FOR LACKLAND 



At a considerable remove from towns, we 

 frequently come upon some quiet streak of 

 country road, charmingly bordered with a 

 wild sylvan tangle of hickories, sumacs, bram- 

 bles, cedars, and all festooned perhaps with 

 the tendrils of the wild grape, or the bitter- 

 sweet. Neither economy or good taste com- 

 mand the removal of these, even when border- 

 ing cultivated fields, except (which rarely oc- 

 curs) they harbor bad weeds to spread within 

 the enclosure. Nay, in nine cases in ten they 

 furnish a grateful shelter from the winds, — a 

 matter too little appreciated as yet, either by 

 fruit growers or grain growers. And on the 

 score of taste, no more charming contrast can 

 be devised than that of such wild profusion of 

 growth, with the neat and orderly array of 

 crops beyond. I can recall no more delightful 

 rural scenes in England, than certain ones in 

 Devonshire, where, after strolling along some 

 admirable bit of Macadam, with high hedge- 

 rows on either side, sprinkled with primroses, 

 and tasselled with nodding ferns, and wild 

 with tangled thicket of bramble, I have, 

 with a leap, broken through and seen be- 

 yond,— so near the road I could have tossed 

 my hat into the field,— such trim lines of em- 

 erald wheat, — without ever a weed or a crook, 



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