The bleak mountain land of the North, especially Yorkshire, is
patterned and chess-boarded with stone fences. But here on the Welsh Border the fields are divided off by green hedges or fences—not of hawthorn, but of hazel. Here and there a short length of the hedge is of hawthorn, or of holly or wild rose-bush, or elm or willow. Gaps are filled in by dead wood, the horizontal piles of which sometimes seem to pretend to act as stiles ; but the angler or tourist who tries to climb over them finds them smashing under his weight. He runs the risk, too, of leaving a piece of his coat flying in the wind. Barbed wire, of which there seems to be an unnecessary amount, increases the possibility of rents and tears. These hazel fences lend a delightful rural luxuriance to the wild mountain landscape and give refuge to the flowers and birds,
but they are not pleasant to field-walker, and they worry the angler to distraction. In bleak Yorkshire you can make a bee-line across the country without let or hindrance. The loose stone fence you clamber over may fall down on the top of you, but unless it hurts you badly you can quickly build it up again.
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