OLD CORNISH HEDGES 45 



case of the planted hedge. She softens and darkens 

 the crude harsh surface, clothes it in grey and yellow 

 lichens and cushioned green moss, and decorates it 

 with everything that will grow on it, before the time 

 comes for her to ruin and finally to obliterate. But 

 what time is needed here for demolition with such a 

 material as granite to work on, where there are no 

 trees to insinuate their roots into the crevices, slowly 

 to expand the pliant fibres into huge woody wedges to 

 thrust the loose stones apart and finally to pull them 

 down ! We can imagine how slow the destructive 

 processes are when we look at innumerable Cornish 

 crosses scattered over the county, showing clearly the 

 lines cut on them in the early days of Christianity in 

 this district. Still more do we see it in the ancient 

 sacred stones the cromlechs, coits, hurlers and holed 

 stones, moor-stones or " merry maidens," and many 

 others which have stood and resisted the disintegrat- 

 ing effect of the weather since prehistoric times. The 

 wall built is practically everlasting, but Nature works 

 slowly on it, and the hedges I had about me differed 

 greatly on this account, from the rude walls raised 

 but yesterday or a dozen or twenty years ago to those 

 which must have stood for centuries or for a thousand 

 years or longer. Indeed, it was the appearance of 

 extreme antiquity in one of these hedges, which I 

 often crossed and sometimes walked on, which first 

 excited my interest in the subject. It looked, and 

 probably is, older than the walls of Silchester, which 

 date back 1700 or 1800 years, and are now being 

 gradually pulled down by the trees that have grown 



