214 THE FORMATION AND MANAGEMENT OF GAME COVERTS. 
The best natural game coverts are those composed of bramble, 
gorse, heath, hazel, blackthorn, elder, blaeberry, bracken, or the 
stronger growing grasses, these being arranged according to merit, 
and each possessing some peculiar feature, specially recommending 
it for planting in certain soils, altitudes, or situations. 
In the formation of artificial game-coverts, when not only shelter 
and protection for game are required, but ornamental effect as well, 
the judicious grouping of the different shrubs should never be lost 
sight of, more especially when the coverts are within the park or 
policy grounds, and visible from drives and roads. Formality and 
stiffness are so often the characteristics of the present style of shrub 
planting, that in many cases our woodlands seem utterly destitute 
of that variety of outline and contrast of light and shade so essential 
to picturesque beauty. In planting evergreen shrubs for the two- 
fold purpose of covert and ornament, the best method is to plant 
each variety in separate groups or clumps. No hard and fast lines 
can be laid down as to the distribution or number of plants to be 
used in the clumps, which, to a great extent, must depend on the 
size and shape of the ground as well as taste of the operator. They 
should, however, be placed at irregular distances apart, be irregular 
in size and outline, and with from a dozen to forty or fifty plants 
in each—bearing in mind that game of all kinds delight in small 
patches of shrubs with abundance of open space around each, but 
detest, in a most marked manner, continuous masses or jungles of 
underwood. 
In selecting sites for the various groups, be careful to choose 
the most open positions, avoiding as much as possible planting 
immediately under the spread of trees; and, if practicable, so 
arranged that in viewing the wood from any point the eye may 
not pass along a straight bare unplanted space, but become arrested 
by the various clumps in passing to the farther side. 
Having arranged the positions of the various clumps, the pits 
should be opened of a size, and at a distance apart suitable for the 
plants intended to be used, taking care that they are sufficiently large 
to avoid cramping or bending of the roots, which in all cases should 
be spread out to their full extent. In making the pits, it is well to 
thoroughly loosen the soil in the bottom and sides with a pick, so 
as to give the tender rootlets a free course when starting into growth 
in spring. Should the soil be found of inferior quality, a few loads 
of leaf mould, road-scrapings, or loam from an adjoining field will 
be found to work wonders in the way of giving the plants a start, 
