140 WINTER SUNSHINE 



the woods to the orchard. The game is more than 

 half tame, and one could easily understand that it 

 had a keeper. 



But the look of those fields and parks went 

 straight to my heart. It is not merely that they 

 were so smooth and cultivated, but that they were 

 so benign and maternal, so redolent of cattle and 

 sheep and of patient, homely farm labor. One gets 

 only here and there a glimpse of such in this coun- 

 try. I see occasionally about our farms a patch of 

 an acre or half acre upon which has settled this at- 

 mosphere of ripe and loving husbandry; a choice 

 bit of meadow about the barn or orchard, or near 

 the house, which has had some special fattening, 

 perhaps been the site of some former garden, or barn, 

 or homestead, or which has had the wash of some 

 building, where the feet of children have played for 

 generations, and the flocks and herds have been fed 

 in winter, and where they love to lie and ruminate 

 at night, — a piece of sward thick and smooth, and 

 full of warmth and nutriment, where the grass is 

 greenest and freshest in spring, and the hay finest 

 and thickest in summer. 



This is the character of the whole of England that 

 I saw. I had been told I should see a garden, but 

 I did not know before to what an extent the earth 

 could become a living repository of the virtues of so 

 many generations of gardeners. The tendency to 

 run to weeds and wild growths seems to have been 

 utterly eradicated from the soil; and if anything 

 were to spring up spontaneously, I think it would 

 be cabbage and turnips, or grass and grain. 



