cks, sweet peas, columbine, and sometimes the graceful lilies of
the valley. The garden stretches in a long strip from the door, one
mass of green. It is enclosed by thick hedges, over which the dog-rose
grows, and the wild convolvulus will blossom in the autumn. Trees fill
up every available space and corner--apple trees, pear trees, damsons,
plums, bullaces--all varieties. The cottagers seem to like to have at
least one tree of every sort. These trees look very nice in the spring
when the apple blossom is out, and again in the autumn when the fruit is
ripe. Under the trees are gooseberry bushes, raspberries, and numbers of
currants. The patches are divided into strips producing potatoes,
cabbage, lettuce, onions, radishes, parsnips; in this kitchen produce,
as with the fruit, they like to possess a few of all kinds. There is
generally a great bunch of rhubarb. In odd corners there are sure to be
a few specimens of southernwood, mugwort, and other herbs; not for use,
but from adherence to the old customs. The "old people" thought much of
these "yherbs," so they must have some too, as well as a little mint and
similar potherbs. In the windows you may see two or three geraniums, and
over the porch a wicker cage, in which the "ousel cock, with
orange-tawny bill," pours out his rich melodious notes. There is hardly
a cottage without its captive bird, or tame rabbit, or mongrel cur,
which seems as much attached to his master as more high-bred dogs to
their owners.

These better cottages are extremely pleasing to look upon. There is an
old English, homely look about them. I know a man now whose cottage is
ornamented much in the way I have described, a man of sixty, who can
neither read nor write, and is rude and uncouth in speech, yet
everything about him seems pleasant and happy. To my eye the thatch and
gables, and picturesque irregularity of this class of cottages, are more
pleasing than the modern glaring red brick and prim slate of dwellings
built to order, where everything is cut with a precise uniformity. If a
man can be encouraged to build his own house, depend upon it it is
better for him and his neighbours than that he should live in one which
is not his own. The sense of ownership engenders a pride in the place,
and all his better feelings are called into play. Some of these
cottagers, living in such houses as these, are the very best labourers
to be had. They stay on one farm a lifetime, and never leave it--an
in