NOTES ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING. 141 



rows, like the conical huts of a savage town, there are 

 but a few, sometimes none. So many are built in the 

 fields and threshed there " to rights," as the bailiff 

 would say. It is not needful to have them near 

 home or keep them, now the threshing-machine has 

 stayed the flail and emptied the barns. Perhaps these 

 are the only two losses to those who look at things 

 and mete them with the eye the corn-ricks and the 

 barns. The corn-ricks were very characteristic, but 

 even now you may see plenty if you look directly 

 after harvest. The barns are going by degrees, 

 passing out of the life of farming ; let us hope that 

 some of them will be converted into silos, and so saved. 

 At the farmsteads themselves there are consider- 

 ations for and against. On the one hand, the house 

 and the garden is much tidier, less uncouth ; there 

 are flowers, such as geraniums, standard roses, those 

 that are favourites in towns ; and the unsightly and 

 unhealthy middens and pools of muddy water have 

 disappeared from beside the gates. But the old 

 flowers and herbs are gone, or linger neglected in 

 corners, and somehow the gentle touch of time has 

 been effaced. The house has got a good deal away 

 from farming. It is on the farm, but disconnected. 

 It is a residence, not a farmhouse. Then you must 

 consider that it is more healthy, sweeter, and better 

 for those who live in it. From a little distance the 

 old effect is obtainable. One thing only I must 

 protest against, and that is the replacing of tiles with 

 slates. The old red tiles of the farmhouses are as 

 natural as leaves; they harmonize with the trees and the 

 hedges, the grass, the wheat, and the ricks. But slates 



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