THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



451 



tained from the atmosphere, either directly through the 

 functions of the leaves, or indirectly through the me- 

 dium of the soil and roots ; and without a corres- 

 pondingly abundant and continuous fresh suiiply of 

 aerial food they cannot prosper. To furnish this supply 

 is one of the many-appointed offices of the ever-shifting 

 winds which sweep along the ground ; hence, the more 

 thorough the shelter the greater the accumulation of ex- 

 hausted, and hence vitiated, air around the plants, and 

 the less the accession of fresh supplies. Again, phy- 

 siology has demonstrated that a chief function of plants 

 is to absorb moisture from the soil by means of their 

 radical fibres, and to transmit it through stem and 

 branches to the leaves, to be there thrown off by evapo- 

 ration. But this action is greatly controlled by the dry 

 or moist condition of the surrounding atmosphere. In 

 dry air the function proceeds with healthful energy ; but 

 if the surrounding medium be loaded with vapour, as is 

 constantly the case in stagnant air, such as will in- 

 evitably accumulate between lofty hedgerows, it will be 

 feeble and morbid. Hence it is that that state of watery 

 succulence, natural to the plant in its earlier stages of 

 growth, is prolonged in over-sheltered, and therefore 

 over-moist situations, into the period when rather it 

 should be desiccating itself into ripeness ; while, on the 

 other hand, a free exposure to every wind that blows is 

 the best and only means to promote atmospheric dry- 

 ness, and thus early and thorough maturity. Nay, more : 

 it has been proved beyond question that the waving 

 motion imparted to vegetation by the passing breeze is 

 mechanically favourable to the healthy circulation of 

 the alimentary juices in all plants. 



And lastly, in that crowning period of the agricul- 

 tural year, the corn harvest, what is the picture too 

 frequently presented within the precincts of the over- 

 fenced and under-sized inclosure ? We will here exhibit 

 a sketch from the graphic pen of one of the ablest of 

 English writers in practical husbandry. " The corn of 

 narrow close fields," says Marshall, in his most in- 

 structive work entitled "Minutes of Agriculture in 

 Southern Counties," "and everywhere under high 

 trees, is, by the many heavy rains, very much lodged, 

 and in some places grown through by weeds ; while in 

 large open fields, or where the hedges are low, very little 

 damage is done. But at present I feel their incon- 

 veniency still more sensibly. We carried the middle of 

 H.l (wheat) the day before yesterday (August 15) in good 

 order; but about a load under a high quick hedge was still 

 damp, and was obliged to be left in the field yesterday. 

 Some of the sheaves were opened to give them air ; a 

 heavy squall came on before they could be reset up, and 

 they are now growing into mats as they lie on the 

 ground. Had it not been for the high hedge it would have 

 been all safe in the barn. I would not wish to see the 

 fence of an arable field above four feet high. The oats 

 of A., under a high thick hedge, are mere dung ; under 

 one which was cut down last year to about four feet they 

 are very little the worse for the weather." — Vol. i, p. 

 332. 



From the physiological and practical ill-consequences 

 of over-grown and over-crowded hedgC'rows let us now 



pass to the consideration of the physiological principles 

 involved in the successful growth and treatment of 

 fences themselves. Now, it were simply to express a 

 mere truism were we only to remark that in old hedges 

 it is constantly happening that individual plants, at 

 various points along the line, are dying out, and thus the 

 unthrifty services of the gap -stopper are in continual 

 requisition. To attribute this circumstance to old age 

 does by no means account for it, because even where a 

 set of vigorous young seedlings are transplanted from 

 the nursery, and placed in the vacant spaces, they also 

 most commonly decay, and ultimately die out. How 

 is this ? We reply, that in the case of the young, as 

 well as of the old plants, there is presented an 

 exemplification of that general law of nature which 

 exhibits itself in what is called land sickness, and which 

 not only aflects the plants of cultivation, but attacks 

 the sturdiest forms in their natural habitations, and 

 converts the once dense forest into a bleak and treeless 

 moor. By extirpating these effete and every-way un- 

 thrifty divisions, and resorting to new lines of inclosure, 

 the agriculturist may not only bring the subdivisions 

 of the farm into proper size and form, as respects 

 economy of cultivation and the well-being of his crops, 

 but will free himself from the bootless labour and cost 

 of trying to keep up fences on which the laws of nature 

 have passed the doom of inevitable decay. 



Proceeding with our argument, we shall next suppose 

 that, moved by considerations such as have been urged 

 in this and former papers, a new suit o fences has 

 been designed and staked off on the ground ; and now 

 the question comes to be, by what principles, physical 

 and physiological, shall the process of construction be 

 guided ? In the first place, then, the planter must 

 remember that every species of vegetable, to whatsoever 

 industrial purpose applied in its growth, affects a quality 

 or condition of soil proper to itself. In their normal 

 habits the thorn and bush, for instance, prefer a dry 

 soil, and will decay and die out in a wet one ; and, 

 therefore, he who plants either in ground not naturally 

 dry, or from which the superabundant moisture has not 

 been withdrawn by thorough drainage, will never pro- 

 cure a thriving or lasting hedge. To dry a wet soil hi- 

 tended to be planted with quick, the futile expedient of 

 excavating an open ditch on either or both sides of the 

 line is very usually resorted to, in neglect of the fact that 

 the roots, in their efforts to obtain food, will descend 

 beneath the bottom of the cut, and re-ascend to the 

 veo-etable mould on the opposite side, super-saturated, 

 as is here supposed, with unwholesome moisture ; and 

 thus, by no expedient can the ill effects of wetness in the 

 soil be withdrawn from the hedgerows but by the same 

 means which are requisite for the prosperous growth of 

 the corn or other cultivated crops. It no doubt is 

 very true that to pass lines of pipes underneath, or in 

 immediate proximity along a planted fence, would be a 

 great practical blunder, since inevitably the descending 

 roots would speedily insinuate themselves through the 

 joints of pipe- drainage, and multiplying themselves into 

 innumerable threads, choke the passage of the water. 

 But the desired effect may effectually be achieved by 



