TREES AND LANES 



45 



might almost think the hedges had a flora of their 

 own. The Cuckoo-pint {Ariim maculatum) is one of 

 our most constant hedge-plants, for though one may 

 come on a fine clump here and there in copses and 

 cool woodland slopes, it is only on the sides of hedges 

 and at their foot that one sees it by the square yard. 



Is it only an instance of patriotic prejudice, or is it 

 really, as I believe, a fact, that no country roads and 

 lanes in the temperate world are so full of sweet and 

 homely pictorial incident as those of our dear England ? 

 For apart from the living pictures of tree and bush, 

 fern and flower, rampant tangle and garland of wild 

 Rose and Honeysuckle, Hop and Briony, and of all 

 these combined with rocky bank and mossy slope, 

 there are the many incidents of human interest. The 

 lowly cottage dwellings of the labouring folk; the 

 comfortable farmstead, almost a village in itself, with 

 its farmhouse and one or two cottages, its barns, 

 stables, cowhouses and piggeries, waggon sheds and 

 granaries. The cottages are of the older type, built 

 before the times of easy communication, when what 

 are now well-kept bye-roads were only sandy tracks. 

 They are precious examples of the true buildings of 

 the country, for they must have been made of the 

 material available from within a few miles only, and 

 they were built by the men who Imew no other ways 

 of working than those of their fathers before them. 

 This is why these farms and cottages seem to grow 

 out of the ground, and are the true and living ex- 



