Overgrown old hedges are exceedingly pretty in autumn when hung with clusters of "haws," the brilliant berries of the hawthorn, and the "hips" of the wild rose. There is, too, the peculiar pink-hued berry of the spindle wood, and, in chalky and limestone districts, the "old man's beard" of the wild clematis, bright fresh hazel nuts, and golden wreaths of wild hops. It is said that "Hops, reformation, bays and beer Came into England all in a year." But it is certain that the wild hops at any rate must have been indigenous, for one finds them in neighbourhoods far from districts where hops are cultivated, and the couplet probably refers to the Flemish variety, which would be the sort imported in the days of Henry VIII., though at the present time our best varieties are far superior. The holly is only seen as garden hedges in the more sandy parishes of Worcestershire, but here in the Forest it is a splendid feature, growing to a great size and height. In winter its bright shining leaves reflecting the sunlight enliven the woods, so that we never get the bare and cheerless look of places where the elm and the whitethorn hedge dominate the landscape. In spring its small white blossoms are thickly distributed, and at Christmas its scarlet berries are ever welcome. Its prickles protect it from browsing cattle and Forest ponies, but it is interesting to notice that many of the leaves on the topmost branches being out of reach of the animals are devoid of this protection. CHAPTER XVII. CORN--WHEAT--RIDGE AND FURROW--BARLEY--FARMERS NEWSTYLE AND OLDSTYLE. "He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went." --_The Brook_. I do not propose to enter upon the ordinary details of arable farming, as not of very general interest, except for those actually engaged thereon. I am aiming especially at the more unusual crops, and what I may call the curiosities of agriculture. It is most interesting to turn to Virgil's _Georgics_ and see how they apply after the lapse of nearly twenty centuries to the farm-work of the present day. Horace, too, was a farmer, though perhaps more of an amateur; he exclaims at the busy scene presented when men and horses are engaged in active field work: "_Heu heu! quantus equis quantus adest viris Sudor!_" which, by the way, was rendered with Victorian propriety by a well-known Oxford professor, "What a quantity of perspiration!" etc. Probably Horace had been watching the sowing of barley or oats on a fine March morning, "the peck of March dust," which we know is "worth a King's ransom," flying behind the harrows. George Cruikshank gives a very spirited and comic realization of Horace's lines, in Hoskin's _Talpa_, where ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, harvesting, thrashing, grinding and carting away the finished product, are all actively proceeding in the same field.