WAY-SIDE HINTS 



sunbeams which sometimes belong" even to a 

 northern winter. Protection from the January 

 sun is, I believe, as important as protection 

 from extreme cold. 



Where the railway passes through a country 

 property upon the same general level with a 

 lawn surface or farm lands, the rules for ad- 

 justment — of crops or of decorative features — 

 so as to carry their best landscape effects, will 

 be comparatively easy. All right lines — 

 whether of annual crops, hedge-rows, or ave- 

 nues — will, of a surety, lose effect by being es- 

 tablished parallel to the line of road. At what 

 angle they should touch upon it, will be best 

 determined by the nature of the surface, and 

 by the conditions of the background. 



I know that it is the habit of many who con- 

 trol large estates adjoining railways, to ig- 

 nore, so far as possible, this iron neighbor, and 

 to make all their plans of improvement with 

 a contemptuous disregard of the travelling ob- 

 servers, who count by thousands, considering 

 only the few who look on from the old high- 

 road, or those, still fewer, who have the privi- 

 lege of the grounds. But in a republican 

 country, this is monstrous; monstrous, indeed, 

 in any country where a man properly reckons 

 his responsibilities to his fellows. If he has 



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