A Dorset Physician In a humble but valuable and amusing
little book, pub- lished the other day more or less privately, I found, as one does in unexpected places, just the piece of information that I had been seeking. The book is The Diary of a West Country Physician, edited by Mr. Edmund Hobliouse, himself a doctor, and published by Simpkin Marshall. The doctor flourished from 1684 to 1726, and played many parts. The bulk of the book is about food, music, education, medicine and a number of quaint domesticities ; but it throws light on a few national events, especially on enclosures, and those among the very earliest. Ile was financially interested in the subject as early as 1700. The point on which I was
today is the essential mark of English rural scenery. Now Mr. Morris, then physician at Wells, became owner of 41 acres seeking information was the creation of the hedgerow which of open field in 1708 and spent 185 on digging ditches, planting hedges and levelling ant hills (to the number of 0,600 !). He was therefore one of the earliest makers of English scenery. Is there any record, I wonder, of the
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