130 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



adoption of movable hurdles. The clearing up of 

 those old lines of hawthorn may give delight to th 

 agricultural eye, but the lover of the picturesque will 

 lament their destruction. The cumbrous hedge-rows, 

 too, of Devon and of the Channel Isles (huge dykes 

 of earth with hedge and trees springing from their 

 top) are yielding to the demands of new and progres- 

 sive culture. I recall many a loitering of a summer's 

 day between these huge banks of green, within sound 

 of the Dart, or of the Exe, or of the beat of the 

 water in La Fret the primroses dotting the close 

 sward, the hedges shutting out the light, the scattered 

 boles wound round with cloaks of ivy, the scant, 

 scraggy limbs interlacing above, and a constant mois- 

 ture upon the macadamized way, giving life to little 

 truant mats of mosses. But near to the centres of 

 travel and improvement, all these delightful old ridgy 

 banks of moss, and earth, and hedges, and trees, 

 have disappeared. The keen tenants, with the per- 

 mission of the landlords, are hunting them down in 

 the retired districts. And no wonder ; they occupied 

 full twenty feet in width ; every rod of them shaded 

 a good perch of grain land ; they offered capital 

 breeding places for scores of rabbits. But though a 

 great change is going on in this respect, as well as in 

 the removal of many of the hedges which mark the 

 interior divisions of the farms, the border lines, and 



