NATURE NEAR LONDON 



very shadow of the almost palatial villas of wealthy 

 " City " men, there may be seen women whose 

 dress and talk at once mark them out as agricul- 

 tural. They have come in on foot from distant 

 farms for a supply of goods, and will return heavily 

 laden. No town-bred woman, however poor, would 

 dress so plainly as these cottage matrons. Their 

 daughters who go with them have caught the finery 

 of the town, and they do not mean to stay in the 

 cottage. 



There is a bleak arable field, on somewhat 

 elevated ground, not very far from the same old 

 barn. In the corner of this field for the last two 

 or three years a great pit of roots has been made : 

 that is, the roots are piled together and covered 

 with straw and earth. When this mound is 

 opened in the early spring, a stout, elderly woman 

 takes her seat beside it, bill-hook in hand, and there 

 she sits the day through, trimming the roots one by 

 one, and casting those that she has prepared aside 

 ready to be carted away to the cattle. 



A hurdle or two propped up with stakes, and 

 against which some of the straw from a mound 

 has been thrown, keeps off some of the wind. 

 But the easterly breezes sweeping over the bare 

 upland must rush round and over that slight bul- 

 wark with force but little broken. Holding the 

 root in the left hand, she turns it round and slashes 

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