284 MY FARM. 



Here and there we come upon a certain neatness 

 and order in enclosures, buildings, and fields ; but ten 

 to one the keeping of the picture is absolutely ruined 

 by the slatternly condition of the highway, to which, 

 though it pass within ten feet of his door, the farmer, 

 by a strange inconsequence, pays no manner of heed. 

 He makes it the receptacle of all waste material, and 

 foists upon the public the ofial, which he will not 

 tolerate within the limits of his enclosure. And the 

 highway purveyors are mostly as brutally unobserv- 

 ant of neatness as the farmer himself ; nay, they seem 

 to put an officious pride into the unseemliness and 

 rawness of their work ; and it is only by most per- 

 sistent watchfulness that I have been able to prevent 

 some bullet-headed road-mender from digging into 

 the turf-slopes at my very door. 



Here and there I see, up and down the country, 

 frequent attempts at what is counted ornamentation 

 fantastic trellises cut out of whitened planks, cum- 

 brous balustrades, with a multitude of shapeless 

 finials, or whimsical pagodas imitations of what 

 cannot be imitated, even if worthy ; but of the hun- 

 dred nameless graces, wrought of home material, 

 delighting you by their unexpectedness, piquing you 

 by their simplicity, and winning upon every passer- 

 by, by their thorough agreement with landscape, and 

 surroundings, and the offices of the farmer, I see far 



