HABITS OF A PASTORAL PEOPLE. 213 



Not a cultivated flower have I seen to-day 

 since we crossed Dunmail-raise, nor a garden 

 vegetable and a fortiori, not a garden. Why 

 this neglect ? 



PISCATOR. The tastes of men are more or 

 less acquired ; and happy favouring circum- 

 stances seem to be required to form the more 

 delicate and refined taste. This I mention in 

 relation to flower-gardens. As to the neglect of 

 kitchen-gardens, may it not be said, that they 

 imply a certain opulence, and if not luxury, 

 certainly a degree of comfort in the way of 

 living hardly to be found in a poor moun- 

 tainous district such as this ? Moreover its 

 being a pastoral district greatly stands in the 

 way of horticulture of any kind ; it would be 

 difficult for a farmer here to defend a garden- 

 plot from the incursions and depredations of his 

 stock, especially his sheep, which, when pressed 

 by hunger in the spring hardly any ordinary 

 wall will keep out. Kemember, no pastoral 

 people have been an horticultural people ; the 

 two occupations are in a manner incompatible ; 

 from Holy Writ we learn that they were sepa- 

 rated from the commencement. 



AMICUS. Yet agriculture is not so incoin- 



P 3 



