i 9 2 MY LIFE 



combine together to produce that charming and indescribable 

 effect we term picturesque. And when we add to these the 

 numerous footpaths which enable us to escape the dust of 

 high roads and to enjoy the glory of wild flowers which the 

 innumerable hedgerows and moist ditches have preserved 

 for us, the breezy downs, the gorse-clad commons and the 

 heath-clad moors still unenclosed, we are, in some favoured 

 districts at least, still able thoroughly to enjoy all the varied 

 aspects of beauty wdiich our country affords us, but which are, 

 alas ! under the combined influences of capitalism and land- 

 lordism, fast disappearing. 



But in America, except in a few parts of the north-eastern 

 States, none of these favourable conditions have prevailed. 

 Over by far the greater part of the country there has been 

 no natural development of lanes and tracks and roads as 

 they were needed for communication between villages and 

 towns that had grown up in places best adapted for early 

 settlement ; but the whole country has been marked out into 

 sections and quarter-sections (of a mile, and a quarter of a 

 mile square), with a right of way of a certain width along 

 each section-line to give access to every quarter-section of 

 one hundred and sixty acres, to one of which, under the home- 

 stead law, every citizen had, or was supposed to have, a right 

 of cultivation and possession. Hence, in all the newer States 

 there are no roads or paths whatever beyond the limits of the 

 townships, and the only lines of communication for foot or 

 horsemen or vehicles of any kind are along these rectangular 

 section-lines, often going up and down hill, over bog or stream, 

 and almost always compelling the traveller to go a much 

 greater distance than the form of the surface rendered 

 necessary. 



Then again, owing to the necessity for rapidly and securely 

 fencing in these quarter-sections, and to the fact that the 

 greater part of the States first settled were largely forest-clad, 

 it became the custom to build rough, strong fences of split- 

 trees, which utilized the timber as it was cut and involved no 

 expenditure of cash by the settler. Again, to avoid the labour 

 of putting posts in the ground the fence was at first usually 



