the artist who wishes to secure such a scene
from oblivion set to work speedily, for these things are fast fading
away.

All these three classes of farmhouse are usually well supplied with
vegetables from the garden attached. The garden in fact was, and still
is, an object of considerable importance to the farmer, quite as much
as the allotment to the labourer. He reckons to receive from it his
whole supply of potatoes, cabbages, beans, peas, and other varieties of
table vegetables, and salads. These constitute an important item when
there is a large family. I do not speak now of the great farmers,
although even these set some store by such produce, but the middle
class. It is usual in these gardens to grow immense quantities of
cabbage of a coarse kind, and also of lettuce, onions, and radishes, all
of which are freely given to the men and women working on the place
during the harvest. They are, in fact, grown especially for them. At the
dinner-hour one or more men of the number, deputed by the rest, come up
to the house. One carries the wooden bottles, or small barrels of ale,
which are handed out from the dairy. The other repairs to the garden,
and pulls up a reasonable quantity of lettuce, onions, or radishes, as
the case may be, from the patches indicated to him by the employer.
These are then washed in the court by the dairy, where there is almost
always a pump, and are then taken out to the men and shared amongst
them. These salads make an agreeable addition to the dry bread and
cheese, or bacon. The custom is an old one, and much to be commended. It
costs the employer next to nothing, and is an element in that goodwill
which should exist between him and the labourer.

On some farms large quantities of fruit are grown--such as gooseberries,
currants, plums, and damsons. Most have enough for their own use; some
sell a considerable amount. Outside the garden is the orchard. Some of
these orchards are very extensive, even in districts where cider is not
the ordinary beverage, and in a good apple year the sale of the apples
forms an important item in the peculiar emoluments of the farmer's wife.
There are, of course, many districts in which the soil is not adapted to
the apple, but as a rule the orchard is an adjunct of the garden. Some
of the real old English farmsteads possess the crowning delight of a
filbert walk, but these are rare now. In fact the introduction of
machinery and steam, and the general revolution