THE HEDGE-BANKS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 39 
Baking upon the hearth is a time-honoured custom. Sarah of 
old made cakes in that way ; the ancient Britons did so ; and the 
Arabs do so to this day. May we add, the art is not " clean forgot 1 } 
in the two south-western counties, where the hedge-side bramble 
answers the purpose of the moorland peat and the prairie buffalo 
chips. 
The grass which most affects the hedge-banks in Devon and 
Cornwall is the wood fescue (Festuca sylvatica) of Knapp (revised 
edition, 1842,) Hudson, Withering, Martyn (Flora rusttca), 
Sibthorp, and others. 
This grass is the wood shortfoot (Brachypodium sylvaticum) of 
Gray (" Natural Arrangement of British Plants,' 7 1821), and the 
Bromus sylvaticus of the " Linnsean Transactions.' ' 
A very singular change attends the Timothy grass (Phleum 
pratense) when by any chance it becomes located in the dry hedge- 
bank ; the root, fibrous naturally, then becomes bulbous. 
Mr. Buskin says a foot or two of an ordinary hedge might, to a 
reverent and contemplative mind, afford busy occupation for months ; 
and really there is scope for much reflection beyond that afforded 
by its natural spoils ; for the hedge- bank is often a repository of 
relics, whether it be the ancient shoe-buckle or brass button 
of huge periphery, fragments of early porcelain, or perchance the 
large-stemmed, thick-bowled fairy-pipe. 
Perhaps Tacitus was not the first to observe the influence of 
clime and soil upon the body and mind of man. Undoubtedly the 
idiosyncracy of a people is to a great extent impregnated and 
moulded by their surroundings, and the features of the country at 
last become the features of the mind. 
" So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar, 
But bind him to his native mountains more." 
And it may very well be a question whether the homely, thrifty 
character, and somewhat concentrated affections, of the west- 
country people may not at least have been intensified "by the 
inclosing and protecting influences of high hedges and steep banks." 
There is nothing that carries a more cheery and sunny influence 
along with it than a true Devonian cottage garden. The sight is 
in itself a cordial ; it goes straight to the heart ! 
What an air of security and comfort pervade the sweet spot ! 
and how the spicy potherbs — rosemary and thyme, marjoram and 
mint — become the place ! There range the beehives, edged round 
