CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 193 



built of rails or logs laid zigzag on each other to the height 

 required, so as to be self-supporting, the upper pairs only 

 being fastened together by a spike through them, the waste 

 of material in such a fence being compensated by the reduction 

 of the labour, since the timber itself was often looked upon 

 as a nuisance to be got rid of before cultivation was possible. 

 And yet again, this fact of timber being in the way of culti- 

 vation and of no use till cut down, led to the very general 

 clearing away of all the trees from about the house, so that it 

 is a comparatively rare thing, except in the eastern towns and 

 villages, to find any old trees that have been left standing for 

 shade or for beauty. 



For these and for similar causes acting through the greater 

 part of North America, there results a monotonous and un- 

 natural ruggedness, a want of harmony between man and 

 nature, the absence of all those softening effects of human 

 labour and human occupation carried on for generation after 

 generation in the same simple way, and in its slow and gradual 

 utilization of natural forces allowing the renovating agency 

 of vegetable and animal life to conceal all harshness of colour 

 or form, and clothe the whole landscape in a garment of 

 perennial beauty. 



Over the larger part of America everything is raw and 

 bare and ugly, with the same kind of ugliness with which we 

 also are defacing our land and destroying its rural beauty. 

 The ugliness of new rows of cottages built to let to the poor, 

 the ugliness of the mean streets of our towns, the ugliness of 

 our " black countries " and our polluted streams. Both 

 countries are creating ugliness, both are destroying beauty; 

 but in America it is done on a larger scale and with a more 

 hideous monotony. The more refined among the Americans 

 see this themselves as clearly as we see it. One of them has 

 said, "A whole huge continent has been so touched by human 

 hands that, over a large part of its surface it has been reduced 

 to a state of unkempt, sordid ugliness ; and it can be brought 

 back into a state of beauty only by further touches of the same 

 hands more intelligently applied." * 



1 The Century, June, 1887. 



