132 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



Gainsborough's landscapes ! Fancy old Walton sit- 

 ting under the " rails " for a little chit-chat with hia 

 blooming milk-maid ! Fancy Milton planting his 



Russet lawns and fallows gray, 

 Where the nibbling flocks do stray, 



under the lee of a well-morticed rail-fence ! 



Yet, poetry apart, we shall probably keep by our 

 timber fences for many generations to come in Ameri- 

 ca ; first, because, in most parts of the country, it is 

 good economy to do so ; and next, because we have 

 as yet no hedge-plant which can thoroughly make 

 good the place of the hawthorn in England. 



We are able to grow the hawthorn indeed ; but 

 it must be done daintily. It will never bear the 

 rough usage which its ordinary use as a hedge-plant 

 for farm purposes involves. The same is true to an 

 equal extent of the buckthorn, which, in addition, has 

 the bad habit of dying in many of our hard winters ; 

 and both these thorns are liable to the attacks of 

 insects (far more pestiferous with us, it would seem, 

 than in Europe), which seriously abridge their use. 

 The white-willow, so trumpeted by bagmen through- 

 out the country is thoroughly a humbug. It is indeed 

 sadly derogatory to the good sense of our rural popu- 

 lation that pretenders could ever foist a claim in 

 favor of a willow, of any known habit of growth, 



