WAY- SIDE HINTS. 125 



reason why a cross-country road for farm traffic only, 

 should have the width of a village street ; yet one 

 uniform turnpike rule of breadth seems to have pre- 

 vailed in the laying down of all countiy thorough- 

 fares in America : of course, did the disposition exist, 

 it would by no means be so easy a matter to keep a 

 rambling highway of forty or fifty feet in width, in 

 such orderly condition as a narrower one which would 

 amply suffice for the traffic. Neither towns nor tarn- 

 pike companies, who mostly have American roads in 

 charge, have any system in their management or any 

 regard for appearances. Exception is to be made in 

 favor of a few public-spirited townships (in Massa- 

 chusetts mostly) which have taken this matter boldly 

 in hand and encouraged order and thrift by whole- 

 some regulations in regard to encroachments upon 

 the highway, and the judicious planting of trees. 

 For the most part, however, American highroads, 

 throughout the rural districts, offer to the eye two 

 great slovenly stretches of land, cumbered with stones, 

 offal, wood-yards, and gaping with yellow chasms of 

 earth, from which, every spring-time and autumn, a 

 few shovelfuls of clay are withdrawn to patch the 

 road-bed which lies between. Under such conditions 

 the utmost neatness and regularity which the farmer 

 may bestow upon his fields and crops lose half their 

 effect, and the landscape lacks that completed charm 



