192 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



surmounting hedgerow, with its rows of elm, ash, or oak, 

 giving variety and sylvan beauty to the surroundings of 

 almost every village or hamlet, most of which go back to 

 Saxon times ; the farms or cottages built of brick, or stone, 

 or clay, or of rude but strong oak framework filled in with 

 clay or lath and roughcast, and with thatched or tiled roofs, 

 varying according to the natural conditions, and in all show- 

 ing the slight curves and irregularities due to the materials 

 used and the hand of theworker; — the whole, worn and coloured 

 by age and surrounded by nature's grandest adornment of 

 self-sown trees in hedgerow or pasture, combine together to 

 produce that charming and indescribable effect we term 

 picturesque. And when we add to these the numerous foot- 

 paths which enable us to escape the dust of high-roads and 

 to enjoy the glory of wild flowers which the innumerable 

 hedgerows and moist ditches have preserved for us, the 

 breezy downs, the gorse-clad commons and the heath-clad 

 moors still unenclosed, we are, in some favoured districts at 

 least, still able thoroughly to enjoy all the varied aspects of 

 beauty which our country affords us, but which are, alas ! 

 under the combined influences of capitalism and landlordism, 

 fast disappearing. 



But in America, except in a few parts of the north-eastern 

 States, none of these favourable conditions have prevailed. 

 Over by far the greater part of the country there has been 

 no natural development of lanes and tracks and roads as 

 they were needed for communication between villages and 

 towns that had grown up in places best adapted for early 

 settlement ; but the whole country has been marked out into 

 sections and quarter-sections (of a mile, and a quarter of a 

 mile square), with a right of way of a certain width along 

 each section-line to give access to every quarter-section of 

 one hundred and sixty acres, to one of which, under the home- 

 stead law, every citizen had, or was supposed to have, a right 

 of cultivation and possession. Hence, in all the newer States 

 there are no roads or paths whatever beyond the limits of the 

 townships, and the only lines of communication for foot or 

 horsemen or vehicles of any kind are along these rectangular 



