man of him at home, in the
way of self-respect, comfort and progress. It would be a "nest-
egg," to which hope, habit and a strengthening ambition would add
others of larger size and value from year to year.

Give, then, the British agricultural laborer good, healthy Housing,
Free Schooling, and let him empty the Jug into the Basket, and he
may work his way up to a very comfortable condition at home. But if
he should prefer to go to Australia or America, where land is cheap
and labor dear, in a few years he may save enough to take him to
either continent, with sufficient left in his pocket to begin life
in a new world.

CHAPTER XII.

FARM GAME--HALLETT WHEAT--OUNDLE--COUNTRY BRIDGES--FOTHERINGAY
CASTLE--QUEEN MARY'S IMPRISONMENT AND EXECUTION--BURGHLEY HOUSE:
THE PARK, AVENUES, ELMS, AND OAKS--THOUGHTS ON TREES, ENGLISH AND
AMERICAN.

Having now pursued a westerly direction until I was in the range of
a continuous upland section of country, I took a northward course
and walked on to Oundle, a goodly town in Northamptonshire, as
unique as its name. On the way, in crossing over to another
turnpike road, I passed through a large tract of land in a very
deshabille condition, rough, boggy and bushy. I soon found it was a
game-growing estate, and very productive of all sorts of birds and
small quadrupeds. The fields I crossed showed a promising crop of
hares and rabbits; and doubtless there were more partridges on that
square mile than in the whole State of Connecticut. This is a
characteristic of the country which will strike an American, at his
first visit, with wonder. He will see hares and rabbits bobbing
about on common farms, and partridges in broods, like separate
flocks of hens and chickens, in fields of grain, within a stone's
throw of the farmer's house. I doubt if any county in New England
produces so many in a year as the holding of Mr. Samuel Jonas
already described. Rabbits have been put out of the pale of
protection somewhat recently, I believe, and branded with the bad
name of _vermin_; so that the tenant farmer may kill them on his
occupation without leave or license from the landlord. It may
indicate their number to state the fact, that one hundred and
twenty-five head of them were killed in one day's shooting on Mr.
Jonas's estate by his sons and some of their friends.

It was market day in Oundle, and I had the pleasure of sitting down
to dinner with a large company of farmers and