MR. FOESYTII ON GAME PRESERVES AND FENCES. 



255 



stone walls, and the worse than idle thorn-hedgerows, are all 

 localities capable of producing fruit. The banks of brooks and 

 rivers, the steep stony ground where ordinary tillage is impos- 

 sible, the edges and gaps of woodland, the square miles of open 

 moor-land and craggy mountain-land, are all capable of produc- 

 ing shelter for game and plenty of fruit ; witness tlie bilberry, 

 how it thrives when the fir-trees are thin on the hill-side, yet 

 tliick enough to break tlie force of the wind. I would not dwell 

 so much on the value of shelter, were I not assured that, from the 

 vine to tlie vilest weed, no fruit or seed could possibly be pro- 

 duced without the halcyon days necessary to enable the blossom 

 to perform its functions, and those days or hours must be 

 serene. 



But to return to the subject of Game Preserves, I may now 

 in conclusion state that the time to try game preserves is when 

 the ground is covered with snow ; then the value of such as the 

 Cotoneaster and the like plants will be seen, which produce both 

 food and shelter ; and by the method detailed in the first part of 

 this paper, gamekeepers and their assistants can now plant in 

 summer, which is their leisure time, and sow game-cover ; and 

 in order that they may see what can be done in this way in a 

 short time, I will tell them, that in a clump of gorse sown here 

 with broom to nurse it, the broom is now more than four feet 

 high in eighteen months, and the game have taken to it for 

 first-rate shelter. This was a bleak spot two years ago, and was 

 thrown in ridges or demi-dykes similar to Fig. A. Small seeds, 

 such as those of the Fuchsia, the Rhododendron, &c. &c., must 

 not be sowed or covered in the ordinary way that cottagers sow 



Fig. D. 



Stones laid round a Patch or (Hump of yount; Rhododendrons, &c. 



