"Certainly," said he; "the population is pretty much the same as it
was at the end of the nineteenth century; we have spread it, that is
all. Of course, also, we have helped to populate other countries--
where we were wanted and were called for."

Said I: "One thing, it seems to me, does not go with your word of
'garden' for the country. You have spoken of wastes and forests, and
I myself have seen the beginning of your Middlesex and Essex forest.
Why do you keep such things in a garden? and isn't it very wasteful
to do so?"

"My friend," he said, "we like these pieces of wild nature, and can
afford them, so we have them; let alone that as to the forests, we
need a great deal of timber, and suppose that our sons and sons' sons
will do the like. As to the land being a garden, I have heard that
they used to have shrubberies and rockeries in gardens once; and
though I might not like the artificial ones, I assure you that some
of the natural rockeries of our garden are worth seeing. Go north
this summer and look at the Cumberland and Westmoreland ones,--where,
by the way, you will see some sheep-feeding, so that they are not so
wasteful as you think; not so wasteful as forcing-grounds for fruit
out of season, _I_ think. Go and have a look at the sheep-walks high
up the slopes between Ingleborough and Pen-y-gwent, and tell me if
you think we WASTE the land there by not covering it with factories
for making things that nobody wants, which was the chief business of
the nineteenth century."

"I will try to go there," said I.

"It won't take much trying," said he.