204 Mil. FOKSYTH ON GAME PRESERVES AND EENCES. 



can penetrate, are by far the warmest and the best sheltered 

 situations for the culture of underwood, and more especially for 

 the propagation of it. The outskirts of plantations generally 

 require to be kept thick, or, in other words, to be feathered to 

 the ground, in order to prevent the wind from blowing down or 

 breaking the trees ; and for this purpose underwood of any kind 

 is very useful, but more especially the evergreen species. 



Such plants as the Rhododendron, the Gorse, the Laurel, and 

 the Yew, retain their properties of protection and shelter during 

 the winter months, when storms and gales of wind are the most 

 frequent and severe, hence their value as auxiliaries in the rear- 

 ing of timber as well as of game. To buy or even to plant ever- 

 greens to the extent, and for the purposes that I presume they 

 will very soon be carried, would be out of the question ; for I 

 not only contemplate their general introduction as underwood 

 for plantations, and their occupying prominent places in the 

 landscape as groups and glades on hill and moor ; but I wish to 

 bring the matter nearer home, and set them to good service as 

 belts and hedgerows to shelter arable land. 



Although trees and tall hedges are exceedingly injurious to 

 the farmer, dwarf evergreen shrubs on the contrary render him 

 valuable assistance in the way of shelter to all low growing crops 

 in exposed situations, and such plants do not shade any land 

 save that on which they stand ; and not having half the amount 

 of foliage to feed that a tall straggling thorn-liedge has, they do 

 not impoverish the land to the extent that common hedges do. 



As I am inclined to look upon gardening, in as far as it is 

 carried on in the open air, as only a sort of experimental farm- 

 ing and experimental foresting, I am endeavouring to pave the 

 way for the introduction of the beautiful lines of evergreen 

 hedges into the corn-fields and copses, which have hitherto been 

 confined to the propa^ting grounds of tlie principal nurseries, 

 where at the present time they are to be seen in great perfec- 

 tion ; for it is an established fact, that if the shelter were taken 

 away from gardens and nurseries the plants could not be grown 

 in them ; and as we have already got Turnips, Carrots, Cab- 

 bages, &c. in the field, which formerly belonged to the garden, 

 it need not be wondered at if I advocate the supply of shelter to 

 these, and such as these, convinced as I am, that it is essential 

 to their full development. Unfortunately this subject embraces 

 so many points, that it looks like rambling from the matter in 

 hand ; but as game is generally diffused, it must be provided 

 for accordingly. 



The farmer may perhaps imagine that this arrangement is 

 calculated to shelter a stock that may be ruinous to his grain 

 crops ; but if he will carefully peruse this paper he will find that 



