XXXII] CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 193 



section-lines, often going up and down hill, over bog or 

 stream, and almost always compelling the traveller to go a 

 much greater distance than the form of the surface rendered 

 necessary. 



Then again, owing to the necessity for rapidly and securely 

 fencing in these quarter-sections, and to the fact that the 

 greater part of the States first settled were largely forest-clad, 

 it became the custom to build rough, strong fences of split- 

 trees, which utilized the timber as it was cut and involved 

 no expenditure of cash by the settler. Again, to avoid the 

 labour of putting posts in the ground the fence was at first 

 usually built of rails or logs laid zigzag on each other to the 

 height required, so as to be self-supporting, the upper pairs 

 only being fastened together by a spike through them, the 

 waste of material in such a fence being compensated by the 

 reduction of the labour, since the timber itself was often 

 looked upon as a nuisance to be got rid of before cultivation 

 was possible. And yet again, this fact of timber being in the 

 way of cultivation and of no use till cut down, led to the very 

 general clearing away of all the trees from about the house, 

 so that it is a comparatively rare thing, except in the eastern 

 towns and villages, to find any old trees that have been left 

 standing for shade or for beauty. 



For these and for similar causes acting through the 

 greater part of North America, there results a monotonous 

 and unnatural ruggedness, a want of harmony between man 

 and nature, the absence of all those softening effects of 

 human labour and human occupation carried on for genera- 

 tion after generation in the same simple way, and in its slow 

 and gradual utilization of natural forces allowing the renovat- 

 ing agency of vegetable and animal life to conceal all harsh- 

 ness of colour or form, and clothe the whole landscape in a 

 garment of perennial beauty. 



Over the larger part of America everything is raw and 

 bare and ugly, with the same kind of ugliness with which we 

 also are defacing our land and destroying its rural beauty. 

 The ugliness of new rows of cottages built to let to the poor, 

 the ugliness of the mean streets of our towns, the ugliness of 



VOL. II. O 



