142 
NATURE NOTES. 
between Ware and Buntingford, and here, not only on the 
high road but on the by-roads, the trees have been treated 
in a manner which can only be termed disgraceful. As one 
approaches Buntingford, there is on the right hand of the road a 
row of hawthorns, extending for a considerable distance. These 
trees are not open to the objection of overhanging the road, for 
they are small, and are separated from this by a strip of ground 
and a ditch ; yet the whole of the side of the trees nearest 
the road has been cut away, and that in the most brutal fashion. 
The beautiful shape and charming appearance of these haw- 
thorns have been entirely and irremediably destroyed. In the 
same neighbourhood there has been a wholesale destruction of 
beautiful old hedges. That hedges from time to time require 
trimming, clearing, and thinning, is of course obvious ; it is 
equally certain that there is no necessity for razing these to 
the ground, and for completely destroying the undergrowth — 
still less for the destruction of fine, well-grown trees, espe- 
cially hollies, which have grown up in the hedge, and which 
form an ornamental feature in the landscape. 
This destruction of hedges is going on, to our personal 
knowledge, not only in the county of Hertford, but in Bucking- 
hamshire, Berkshire, Oxon and Essex ; the result is that some 
of the most charming landscapes in these counties have been 
ruined. We repeat that where such destruction is necessary 
for the sake of the crops in the fields, or the improvement of 
the roads, any objection might fairly be condemned as merely 
sentimental; but the cases we have in view cannot be justified 
on the ground of necessity. But it is not only the hedges them- 
selves that are spoilt. The hedge-banks are stripped, and worse 
still, the grassy strips which often add beauty to our waysides, 
and afford a cool refuge to the weary foot-traveller along the dusty 
high-road, are either removed — as in many parts of the way 
between Culham and Dorchester, Oxon — or pared and narrowed 
by one half of their dimensions. This is carried out in the worst 
possible way about Chelmsford. Here these strips are often of 
considerable width ; the edge, however, is made perfectly straight, 
and the earth and grass removed in the process of trimming is 
thrown in little heaps upon the remaining grassy portion. The 
owner of the adjoining land is not allowed to take these away, 
and the result is that the portion of the grass that is suffered to 
remain is rendered useless for walking purposes by the constant 
recurrence of these little heaps. Nor is this all ; on the ground 
thus turned over, coarse weeds, and especially thistles, take up 
their position, the result being a disfigurement of the roadside, 
and the fostering of noxious weeds to the detriment of the crops 
in the adjoining fields. 
We do not know how this state of things is to be stopped, 
but unless some means of prevention be found, the Uglification 
of England will soon become an accomplished fact. Already it 
may be said, “ there has passed a glory from the earth ; ” it is for 
