ADVICE FOR LACKLAND. 91 



of the road-track, but only such judicious comb- 

 ing down of unsightly roughnesses, such watchful- 

 ness against encumbrance, such adaptation of exist- 

 ing shade trees, or such planting of others, as shall 

 show that the adjoining proprietor does not limit his 

 charities by his own walls, or his eye for neatness by 

 the line of highway. 



Once upon a time, when the writer was in search of 

 a country homestead, he remembers deciding against 

 certain " strongly recommended " places, because the 

 highroad to them led through a considerable ar- 

 ray of suburban houses, whose occupants made it a 

 religious duty to throw all their offal in the public 

 street, and to cumber the same locality with their 

 hoop-poles, or their wood-piles, or their shoe-parings. 

 It is so hard to unlearn such a noisome depravity of 

 taste ! Many of the small towns on the banks of the 

 Hudson (near to New York) and in New Jersey, 

 offer an extended exhibition of this sort of local econ- 

 omy and fragrant treasures. And I have sometimes 

 thought that New York citizens, by reason of the 

 offal in their streets, become quite agreeably wonted 

 to such disposition of cast-away bones and filth, and 

 scent it, upon their drives to their country homes, 

 with an appetizing relish. But in the name of all 

 true rural delight, I beg to enter protest, and to urge 

 every man who has his homestead under green trees, 



