ii2 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



it far longer than the open field, and will start the 

 next day with a better balance in hand. So we see 

 that not only in the hedge, but near the hedge and on 

 both sides of it, the fool's- parsley, hog- weed, ground-ivy, 

 cowslips, violets, bluebells, and all manner of things 

 come up much earlier than the things in the field. 



The lesson of the hedge has been partly learnt by 

 the market gardener. In the neighbourhood of Paris, 

 hundreds of miles of walls have been built for the 

 sheltering of early vegetables. The brick wall pos- 

 sesses in superior degree one of the virtues of the 

 hedge opposition to wind but it is obviously 

 inferior in the two other respects mentioned above. 

 Hedges are used instead, to some extent, in the 

 market gardens of Sussex, and many a Cornishman 

 has raised a row of early potatoes on the lee side of 

 a hedge ; but, generally, the roots of such a living 

 rampart have been found altogether too greedy and 

 unmanageable in rich garden soil, even before the 

 cheapening of glass put the device out of date. 

 When land can be covered in glass for about six- 

 pence the square foot, the man who has security of 

 tenure and fixity of rent has very little inducement 

 to cumber it with mere sheltering walls and hedges. 

 A new influence, therefore, bends the isothermal line 

 into contortions that have no relation to the im- 

 pingement of the sea, the annual average of sunshine, 

 the shelter of mountains, or the nature of the soil. 

 The right system of tenure on cold clay or barren 

 sand will produce green peas by the mile, and French 

 beans by the ton, long before even the blossoms 

 appear on richer and better favoured sites, where the 

 tenancy is annual and arbitrary. 



