long the road
could not choose but look on and admire the transformation.

I had often been struck with the flourishing appearance of cottage
gardens, but then those gardens were of old date and had reached that
perfection in course of years. But here the thing seemed to grow up under
one's eyes. All was effected by sheer energy. Instead of spending their
evenings wastefully at 'public,' these men went out into their gardens and
made what was a desert literally bloom. Nor did they seem conscious of
doing anything extraordinary, but worked away in the most matter-of-fact
manner, calling no one's attention to their progress. It would be hard to
say which garden of the two showed the better result. Their wives are
tidy, their children clean, their cottages grow more cosy and homelike day
by day; yet they work in the fields that come up to their very doors, and
receive nothing but the ordinary agricultural wages of the district.

This proves what can be done when the agricultural labourer really wants
to do it. And in a very large number of cases it must further be admitted
that he does want to do it, and succeeds. If any one when passing through
a rural district will look closely at the cottages and gardens he will
frequently find evidence of similar energy, and not unfrequently of
something approaching very nearly to taste. For why does the labourer
train honeysuckle up his porch, and the out-of-door grape up the southern
end of his house? Why does he let the houseleek remain on the roof; why
trim and encourage the thick growth of ivy that clothes the chimney?
Certainly not for utility, nor pecuniary profit. It is because he has some
amount of appreciation of the beauty of flowers, of vine leaf, and green
ivy. Men like these are the real backbone of our peasantry. They are not
the agitators; it is the idle hang-dogs who form the disturbing element in
the village.

The settled agricultural labourer, of all others, has the least inducement
to strike or leave his work. The longer he can stay in one place the
better for him in many ways. His fruit-trees, which he planted years ago,
are coming to perfection, and bear sufficient fruit in favourable years
not only to give him some variety of diet, but to bring in a sum in hard
cash with which to purchase extras. The soil of the garden, long manured
and dug, is twice as fertile as when he first disturbed the earth. The
hedges have grown high, and keep off the bitter winds. In sh