MR. FORSYTH OX GAME PRESERVES AND FENCES. 247 



Loudon mentions some such avenues that he passed through 

 sixty miles in length, and loaded with fruit. Surely such ave- 

 nues of fruit-trees are worthy of our imitation. I would not 

 dwell upon this subject so nmch were it not for this reason : 

 that the farm is head-quarters for game ; and I regret to see the 

 farmer plodding continually with the herbaceous annual, as if, 

 forsooth, no other plant would pay ; whereas the willow-twig 

 and the gorse-twig are more substantial and more wholesome 

 fodder than half the herbage usually collected and dried as hay ; 

 and moreover, it is impossible to carry the culture of herbaceous 

 crops to the greatest perfection without the shelter which ligneous 

 plants alone can accomplish. 



It is really astonishing to find that of all the valuable shrubs 

 and trees that will bear the open air in England, I cannot call 

 to mind more than one that I have ever seen cultivated by the 

 farmer for its spray, and that one is the Gorse. Upon the pre- 

 sent occasion I must confine myself to naming the Willow and 

 the Mountain-Ash as two more of the greatest importance to 

 the agriculturist and to the game-preserves. The land that will 

 only yield rushes and dirty unhealthy herbage, from being oc- 

 casionally inundated with muddy water, will yield osier-twigs, a 

 clean standing healthy crop three feet high, with rich juice and 

 a great weight of crop. Loudon mentions, on the authority of 

 Bosc, a French botanist, that horses fed on willow-shoots will 

 travel twenty leagues a day. 



And, in regard of the Mountain-Ash, its name implies it to be 

 a tenant of the stormy region ; it is a plant of rapid growth, 

 thriving in a ridge of poor soil, where few plants could live. Its 

 plants are cheap in the nurseries, and it bears transplanting with 

 less loss than most trees. It is readily obtained, and at a very 

 cheap rate, by sowing on the mountains the ripe berries, bearing 

 in mind that they lie a whole year in the ground before they 

 vegetate. As this tree fruits freely, and birds greedily eat the 

 fruit, it is very strange that we do not find it turned to profit- 

 able account. From my own experience I have found one valu- 

 able use of this fruit. A quantity of the berries were gathered 

 in bunches and built into a stack of barley in hai'vest-time, and 

 in the following spring the stack being taken down to be threshed, 

 the berries were found to have lost much of their acidity, and 

 were not unpleasant to the taste, and were greedily eaten by 

 poultry and various domestic animals. In times of scarcity these 

 berries have been kiln-dried and ground as food for man, thereby 

 showing that they might safely be used at any time in this dried 

 state for pigs and poultry. I am the more anxious to get this 

 tree introduced into our domestic economy, on account of the 

 berries being of such importance to feed birds and game, and 



