Sept. 5. - Nettlecombe to Exeter, through Tiverton. The road as far as Bampton was extremely hilly, consisting of narrow lanes, with their fences so high that the eye was either carried over the adjoining fields to such hilly ground as was near at hand, or, where hills were wanting, there was nothing seen but the steep high banks of the farms which bordered the deep and ditch-like road. At Bampton, the cottages have their chimney-tops finished with slates, sometimes two forming a triangle, and sometimes one large slate supported by four props, and kept from being blown away by a stone, as in the lake scenery. The walls are either of stone or of cob, the latter being formed much in the same way as the pise walls in France. The roofs on the detached cottages are generally of thatch. The cob walls are frequently used for gardens, the trees being trained on trellises placed against them; but there is the disadvantage attending them, that, when the trees are washed with a syringe or engine, the leaves or fruit are apt to get dirtied by the soil loosened and brought down from the wall by the water. These walls, as well as the houses of cob, are frequently whitewashed, and sometimes rough-cast; which resists for a time the action of the weather, but not sufficiently in garden walls to justify their use where fine fruit is an object. The various ways in which the round hills are crossed by the hedges which divide the fields afford useful hints to the landscape-gardener, in cases where such hills are in cultivation, and are, at the same time, to be treated with a view to their effect in landscape. It is least desirable to have the lines of the fences cutting the hills horizontally; and most so to have the lines in the same direction as the slope, and tending more or less to the summit or highest part of the hill. Much depends on the distribution of the trees in the hedge-rows; two or three hedges, with hedge-row trees, meeting on or near the summit of a hill, add wonderfully to its effect; while a single hedge, with trees, crossing the hill horizontally, half-way between its base and summit, or at a certain distance below the summit, will destroy the character of the hill altogether. Where the soil on the summit of such hills can be moved, a conical or pointed termination may frequently be given at a moderate expense, by hollowing out a little soil from the sides, and heaping it up on the summit. Of course, hills so improved must be kept under grass, for the plough would soon reduce them to a tame, monotonous, convex outline. From Tiverton to Exeter the road follows the course of the Exe, which passes through a finely wooded valley; and, were it not for the high road-side fences, it would be exquisitely beautiful. It is impossible, however, to enjoy this or any other scenery properly from the public roads, on account of the height of the fences. The church at Tiverton contains some curious carving, particularly in a chapel erected long after the church; on the exterior of which was represented an extensive sea-scene with ships, proving, as all such scenes do, that the artist did not know the proper province of sculpture, which is to represent single objects, or foreground groups, and never subjects requiring the effect of distance. In the churchyard, we observed an American, a Cornish, and a Dutch elm, with both the new and old Lucombe oaks, and the Turkey oak.
