These and other arguments, of the same utilitarian genus, are making perceptible headway.

Will they ever carry the day against the green hedges?
I think they would, very soon, if the English farmer owned the land he cultivates.

But such is rarely the case.

Still, this fact may not prevent the final consummation of this policy of material interest.
In a great many instances, the tenant might compromise with the landlord in such a way as to bring about this "modern improvement." And a comparatively few instances, showing a certain per centage of increased production per acre to the former, and a little additional rentage to the latter, would suffice to give the innovation an impulse that would sweep away half the hedges of the country, and deface that picture which so many generations have loved to such enthusiasm of admiration.
Will the trees of the hedge-row be exposed to the same end?
I think they will.

Though trees are the most sacred things the earth begets in England, as has already been said, the farmer here looks at them with an evil eye, as horse-leeches that bleed to death long stretches of the land he pays 2 pounds per acre for annually to his landlord.