194 Recollections of a Gardening Tour. 



the land on which they grow, it ought to be effected by a district 

 officer, whose business it should be to attend to this and other 

 public nuisances, at the occupier's expense. In some parts of 

 the Continent parochial rewards are given for the unexpanded 

 flower-buds of weeds, for the cocoons of insects, and for the 

 young of different sorts of vermin ; but we are not yet arrived 

 at this degree of agricultural nicety. 



We cannot help remarking that in the midst of fields covered 

 with the most luxuriant crops, the rows of cottages by the road 

 side had the most miserable appearance. No variety in their form, 

 magnitude, or materials ; no difference in the size of their windows, 

 or in their chimney tops ; no porch ; no front garden ; no creepers 

 or climbers on the walls ; no flowers to be seen anywhere ; and few 

 or no windows, except those on the ground floor, to give the idea 

 of a bed-room floor. The same line of dull stone side wall, and of 

 slate, stone, or thatched roof; the walls with small windows, the 

 broken panes of glass in which are often stuffed with rags; occur 

 at intervals all along the road, forming a notable contrast with 

 the wealth displayed in the villas, the farm-houses, the fields, 

 and even the fences and roads. The agricultural labourers' cot- 

 tages, in short, seem the only part of the general scenery in 

 Scotland that has undergone little or no improvement. We 

 know scarcely any difference in their appearance now from what 

 it was forty years ago, when we first passed through this part of 

 the country. The farm-houses and fences, on the other hand, 

 have been almost everywhere entirely rebuilt since that time. 

 We saw only one attempt at an ornamental cottage between 

 Glasgow and Uddingstone, and that was at a turnpike-gate. 

 Every attempt at improvement deserves to be encouraged, and 

 the only fault that we shall find in the present case is, that the 

 side walls of this cottage were much too low. There is an idea 

 prevalent among architects, more especially in Scotland, that the 

 dwellings of the poor must exhibit an appearance of poverty 

 and humility, however much they may be ornamented ; and 

 hence the low side walls and the narrow dimensions of gate 

 lodges and other ornamental cottages built on gentlemen's estates, 

 which, however, are ornamented exteriorly to an extent most 

 ridiculous, when compared with the low ceilings and scanty 

 accommodation within ; as if a poor man did not require as large 

 a volume of air to breathe in as a rich one. This is, no doubt, 

 in part owing to the want of thought in architects, but it is, we 

 are persuaded, in part also to the sycophant properties inherent 

 in our countrymen, and to their want of moral courage (see 

 p. 135.). In an agricultural country like Scotland, where a 

 great many feudal prejudices still exist, a man who has risen by 

 his professional merits so as to be admitted to the tables of the 

 aristocracy, is ashamed to urge anything that would remind his 



