CHAPTER IV.
TALK WITH AN OLD MAN ON THE WAY--OLD HOUSES IN ENGLAND--THEIR AMERICAN RELATIONSHIPS--ENGLISH HEDGES AND HEDGE-ROW TREES--THEIR PROBABLE FATE--CHANGE OF RURAL SCENERY WITHOUT THEM.
From Tiptree I had a pleasant walk to Coggeshall, a unique and antique town, marked by the quaint and picturesque architecture of the Elizabethan regime.

On the way I met an old man, eighty-three years of age, busily at work with his wheel-barrow, shovel, and bush-broom, gathering up the droppings of manure on the road.

I stopped and had a long talk with him, and learned much of those ingenious and minute industries by which thousands of poor men house, feed, and clothe themselves and their families in a country super-abounding with labor.

He had nearly filled his barrow, after trundling it for four miles.

He could sell his little load for 4d.
to a neighboring farmer; but he intended to keep it for a small garden patch allotted to him by his son, with whom he lived.