42 GARDEN IN HIGH SITUATIONS. 



up black peat earth, mingled with round white 

 stones, does the nearest plantation of Scotch firs 

 present its small tufts of annual growth, like the 

 top of a thistle; and is its hedge, of twelve years' 

 standing, scarcely two feet in stature, and covered 

 all over with moss of an ochrey colour mingled 

 with silver grey, take your measures accordingly. 

 Plant no hedge with a view to keep out hens or 

 hares, but raise a strong rampart of large blue stone 

 from the nearest quarry, and within it plant green 

 kale and potatoes. Your kale plantation will 

 thrive no worse for affording shelter and pasture 

 to your hens, whose eggs will be the best of your 

 garden productions. Even here I could figure a 

 certain degree of beauty inside the garden; but it 

 must be of a kind suited to the nature of the place 

 I would have the high mound of dry stone fence 

 completely covered with Irish ivy. I would have 

 no fruit trees and no flowers; the heath is beauti- 

 ful, and the village children will bring enough of 

 fruit for preserves from the cranberry bogs. In 

 the keen air giving a keener appetite for breakfast, 

 it will be no vexing sight to see the garden full of 

 hens; some feeding amongst the kale, some cack- 

 ling for joy of their warm nest, beneath the ivy, 

 in the vernal sun; and others, white as the snow, 

 perched on the green summit, like sea mews on the 

 ridge of the wave. For your own shelter, rather 

 collect peat fuel all summer than plant trees all 

 winter. If your glebe could spare a hundred acres 

 you would do well to cover them with larch, which 



