WAY-SIDE HINTS 



that a great bit of the warp upon which have 

 been woven so many of the charming rural 

 pictures in British art and song, is forever 

 wanting to us here. Fancy a trim Hne of 

 posts running across the clayey ground of one 

 of Gainsborough's landscapes! Fancy old 

 Walton sitting under the "rails" for a little 

 chit-chat with his blooming milk-maid ! Fancy 

 Milton planting his 



Russet lawns and fallows gray, 

 Where the nibbling flocks do stray, 



under the lee of a well-mortised rail- fence! 



Yet, poetry apart, we shall probably keep 

 by our timber fences for many generations to 

 come in America; first, because, in most parts 

 of the country, it is good economy to do so; 

 and next, because we have as yet no hedge- 

 plant which can thoroughly make good the 

 place of the hawthorn in England 



We are able to grow the hawthorn indeed; 

 but it must be done daintily. It will never 

 bear the rough usage which its ordinary use as 

 a hedge-plant for farm purposes involves. The 

 same is true to an equal extent of the buckthorn, 

 which, in addition, has the bad habit of dying 

 in many of our hard winters; and both these 



145 



