A Dry Ditch. 107 



circumstances a dry ditch would not make the worst of 

 beds. Thousands in large cities every night sleep on 

 a far worse and unhealthier one ; the more that for 

 curtain there is the interwoven twigs or lightly rust- 

 ling greenery of the hedge above, and the sky and the 

 stars to weave a pattern in it. 



The boy that has made himself thoroughly familiar 

 with a ditch and hedgerow is on the way to become a 

 fair naturalist ; he has laid the foundations of an educa- 

 tion on which, as one may say, it is possible to build 

 almost any superstructure. 



As we are about to conclude and look round, pen in 

 hand, our eye lights once again on our own little hedge- 

 row at the bottom of the garden. This suggests a 

 practical paragraph to end with. 



Mr. James Long, than whom we have not perhaps a 

 more practical director for any one who possesses a 

 small plot of ground, recommends that all gaps in 

 hedges on a small farm or garden should be mended 

 up with gooseberry bushes, where they will grow 

 admirably. The hint might be made to yield no end 

 of variety to the eye and profit to the pocket. They 

 can be trimmed down into the needful uniformity 

 season by season, and be only improved by it. Then, 

 recently, we saw that some enterprising nursery firm 

 were willing to supply at a cheap rate plants of a 

 very fine kind of blackberry, of American origin if we 

 remember rightly, which might be used in the same 

 way, producing in its season the most luscious fruit. 

 Here, even within the smallest demesne, the occupier 

 may with little outlay, and with very slight labour, 

 intermarry the wild and the cultivated in the .most 

 delightful style, have a tiny but wholly unique garden 

 in his hedgerow, with vari-coloured blossom and flower 



