London to Larbert (Scotland)
1909.
Sept 11 [September 11, 1909]
  Forenoon cloudy & misty; afternoon sunny.
  Left London at 10.5 A.M. and reached Larbert at 7 P.M.
traveling by North Western Railway which crosses England diagonally
and enters Scotland a little beyond the city of Carlisle. Most of the
English country which this road traverses is very uniform in
character, so much so, in fact, that after one becomes accustomed to
it it ceases to be especially interesting although it is everywhere
most pleasing and attractive. Practically all of it is extremely fertile
and under cultivation, open fields devoted to grass, grain or pasturage
and separated from one another by hedges, stretching in every direction
as far as the eye can reach. In places there are few, if any, trees
except about the widely scattered houses; in others fine old oaks
and elms are dotted rather plentifully over the pastures and strung
in long perfectly straight lines along the hedge-rows, giving the country
a park-like appearance near at hand and at a distance that of a
scattered forest. The fields are nearly all rectangular in shape. They
vary in extent from two or three to fifty or more acres. The grass
is surprisingly rich and dense and everywhere of the most uniform
green there being literally no sandy or gravelly patches where it
is thin & brown as in so many of our New England fields.
The grain fields far surpass in number & excellence anything we have
in America east of the Alleghenies & New York State. More or less of
them are constantly in sight & the grain (chiefly wheat & oats) seems
to be heavy-headed & of fine quality. Most of it has now been
reaped & is standing in sheaves in the fields. The fields, as a
rule, are undulating & rarely perfectly level but there are few high,
or, at least, abrupt, hills. We passed only a very few woods of large
extent but there were thickets along some of the streams & many
scattered groves & coppices in waste corners. The country is almost
wholly devoid of ponds & there are comparatively few brooks