ALDERS AND REEDS. in 



in the water, or rather their roots have sunk beneath 

 it. They will soon fall bodily into it, as hundreds 

 of them have already done. As you lean over the 

 old crumbling bridge, and look over the pool through 

 the openings in the reeds and sedges, towards the 

 great thickets of willow, sallow, and alder that line 

 the sides of the feeding-stream down to the pool, 

 there is something weird and dreary about the idea 

 that one bend in the road has taken you from the 

 glaringly new to the hoary old. As I passed the 

 trim lodge lately, a smart carnage came out and 

 passed by on its way to the railway station ; I could 

 hear the whistle of the engine and the rush of the 

 train, whilst here all was silent save the slush up of 

 a pike in the reeds, and the strange notes of the rail 

 and the moor-hen mixed with those of creatures we 

 could not see. 



The particular experiment I referred to has done 

 good in every way ; for substantial cottages have 

 been erected where the farmer's cattle were apt to 

 get bogged and smothered. Those who work in the 

 prospering market -gardens and the water -cress 

 beds live in these. And not only that, but there is 

 a change in the people themselves, one much for the 



