Destruction of Yoicng Trees. 55 



The keeper looks upon this simply as another sign 

 of the idleness and dislike of taking trouble character- 

 istic of the times. To set up a line of posts and rails 

 requires some little skill ; a man must know his 

 business to stop a gap with a single rail or pole, 

 fixing the ends firmly in among the underwood ; even 

 to fit thorn bushes in properly, so as to effectually 

 bar the way, needs some judgment : but anybody 

 can stretch a wire along and twist it round a tree. 

 Hedge-carpentering was, in fact, a distinct business, 

 followed by one or two men in every locality ; but 

 iron now supplants everything, and the hedges them- 

 selves are disappearing. 



When the hedgers and ditchers were put to work 

 to cut a hedge — the turn of every hedge comes round 

 once in so many years — they used to be instructed, if 

 they came across a sapling oak, ash, or elm, to spare 

 it, and cut away the bushes to give it full play. But 

 now they chop and slash away without remorse, and 

 the young forest-tree rising up with a promise of 

 future beauty falls before the billhook. In time the 

 full-grown oaks and elms of the hedgerow decay, or 

 are felled ; and in consequence of this careless de- 

 struction of the saplings there is nothing to fill their 

 place. The charm of English meadows consisted in 

 no small degree in the stately trees, whose shadows 



