94 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



own frontage. If such nursery beds had not been 

 tolerated, we should long ago, I think, have scotched 

 the Canada thistle, if not that detestable weed, the 

 wild carrot. 



At a considerable remove from towns, we fre- 

 quently come upon some quiet streak of country road, 

 charmingly bordered with a wild sylvan tangle of 

 hickories, sumacs, brambles, cedars, and all festooned 

 perhaps with the tendrils of the wild grape, or the 

 bittersweet. Neither economy or good taste com- 

 mand the removal of these, even when bordering cul- 

 tivated fields, except (which rarely occurs) they har- 

 bor bad weeds to spread within the enclosure. Nay, 

 in nine cases in ten they furnish, a grateful shelter 

 from the winds, a matter too little appreciated as 

 yet, either by fruit growers or grain growers. And 

 on the score of taste, no more charming contrast can 

 be devised than that of such wild profusion of growth, 

 with the neat and orderly array of crops beyond. I 

 can recall no more delightful rural scenes in England, 

 tibc certain ones in Devonshire, where, after strolling 

 along some admirable bit of Macadam, with high 

 hedge-rows on either side, sprinkled with primroses, 

 and tasselled with nodding ferns, and wild with tangled 

 thickets of bramble, I have, with a leap, broken 

 through and seen beyond, so near the road I could 

 have tossed my hat into the field, such trim lines 



