364 Notes and Gleanings. 



No doubt, the time occupied by the passage from one country to the other will 

 account, in part, for the difference. Setting this, ho-'»-ever, aside, I presume there 

 can be no doubt that vegetation, in the early spring, is, under the milder climate 

 of England, much in advance of what it is at the same time in our part of the 

 United States, — an advance, however, that, as the season progresses, is lost by 

 England, even if it is not changed into one in favor of the United States, in con- 

 sequence of the much more rapid rate at which vegetation progresses in the 

 latter than the former country. This, at least, was my conclusion, arrived at 

 from my observation in Southern Europe on a previous occasion, and applies, 

 I am inclined to think, equally to England. On the 7th of June, I saw straw- 

 berries, grown in the open air, for the first time in Covent-garden Market. They 

 had, however, been for sale a few days earHer ; and when 1 left London, on the 

 6th of July, the market continued to be well supplied with them. In the earlier 

 part of May, the weather in England was very warm, succeeded by dull, cold 

 weather, and, on the 22d, by showers of snow and hail, to which again fol- 

 lowed great heat. I am inclined to think that these were exceptional occur- 

 rences, or, at least, that so great alternations in the temperature, or perhaps, I 

 should rather say, that such extremes of heat or cold, are, at this season, unusual. 

 Apart from the mountainous parts of the country, and, of course, with some diver- 

 sity, there is a great similarity in English scenery; that^is, the salient or promi- 

 nent characteristics of the landscape exhibit a great similarity. There is every- 

 where the same soft, rounded swells in the land, hardly to be called hills ; the 

 same smooth levels, divided, by enclosures of hedges in vv'hich often flowering 

 shrubs are growing, into rather small fields, with sometimes a small river or 

 stream winding through them, and groves and coppices of wood scattered 

 about ; occasionally a village-church, with its tower covered with ivy ; and 

 often some gentleman's seat on high ground in the distance, with a background 

 of oaks, and approached by an avenue of elms or beech, with farmhouses and 

 steadings in the foreground. To one content with a landscape without any 

 approach to sublimity or grandeur, or being even picturesque, but that, on the con- 

 trary, may be considered as tame and domestic, England is constantly presenting 

 views that are of great beauty ; at least, so it seemed to me, perhaps, in part, from 

 the contrast offered to those with which 1 am most familiar in our own country. 



The cultivation of the soil in England seemed to me of a superior order, and 

 its tilth to be thorough, and carefully performed ; while the implements used for 

 the purpose, to an American eye, look heavy, clumsy, and not well suited to the 

 purpose. Yet long experience must have thoroughly tested and proved their 

 adaptation to the end aimed at. Certainly such appears to be the result : for 

 a newly-ploughed field, with its perfectly straight furrows, and the ground evenly 

 and smoothly turned over, looks as if the labor must have been performed by 

 hand with the spade ; and, when harrowed, ajDpears like a nicely-raked bed in 

 a gentleman's garden. 



To a passing stranger, the soil generally seems naturally fertile, or, when not 

 so naturally, to have been made so by judicious improvement, by under-drain- 

 ing, or by other processes. There is, of course, a diversity of soil, and, in some 

 places, such as is unsuited to agricultural uses. Yet to meet with such where 



