OLD CORNISH HEDGES 43 



earth, the beaten bush strains to get away ; it suggests 

 the figure of a person crawling, or trying to crawl, the 

 knee-like joints on the ground, the body-like trunk 

 thrown forward, the long bare branches and terminal 

 twigs, like the brown, thin naked arms and claw-like 

 opened fingers of a starving scourged slave in the 

 tropics, extended imploringly towards the land. 



This being the nature of the country the farmer can 

 but hedge his land and fields with stone : he is in a 

 measure compelled to do so, since the earth is full of 

 it and the land strewn with boulders ; to make a field 

 he must remove it and bestow it somewhere. Now 

 after centuries of this process of removing and piling 

 up stones, the farm land has become covered over with 

 a network of these enduring hedges, or fences, inter- 

 secting each other at all angles ; and viewed from a 

 hill-top the country has the appearance of a patched 

 quilt made of pieces of all sizes and every possible 

 shape, and of all shades of green from darkest gorse 

 to the delicate and vivid greens of the young winter 

 grass. 



That half-reclaimed district, especially the strip of 

 coast from St. Ives Bay to Cape Cornwall, was a good 

 winter hunting ground, and I spent many weeks in 

 ranging about the fields and waste or incult places 

 among them. Here you can wander at will, without 

 fear of hurting the farmer's feelings, as in Devonshire, 

 by walking on his land. The cultivation is little, the 

 fields being mostly grass : the small farm-house is out 

 of sight somewhere behind the stone hedges ; it is 

 rare to meet with a human being, and the few cows or 



