916 THE FORMATION AND MANAGEMENT OF GAME COVERTS. 
effect, or to produce covert at once, and when the plants begin to 
encroach on each other every alternate one is removed, thus giving 
the remaining plants ample room for developing side branches and 
thereby inducing a dwarf-spreading habit. Having a tendency, 
especially when confined, to increase more in height than width, the 
laurel, after a few year’s growth, should have all the leading and 
straggling upper branches cut over, which will not only increase 
the under shoots but prevent the plants running up into tall, 
branchless poles. 
The green tree-box (Buaus sempervirens) forms a very pretty as 
well as desirable covert plant, and thrives well beneath the densest 
shade of deciduous trees. It is also of slow dense growth, and well 
adapted for planting in various soils and situations, although prefer- 
ing a light loam and shady position. Another recommendation is 
its immunity from the attacks of game, hares and rabbits having 
such an aversion to this plant, that even during the most severe 
weather, I cannot remember having seen it injured. Few plants 
suffer more from overcrowding than the box, and for this reason it 
should be planted at wide distances apart, the plants soon getting 
top-heavy and falling over of their own accord. Where the plants 
are not of large size, and immediate effect or covert is required, 
they may be planted pretty close, and in a few years, when en- 
croaching on each other, every alternate one may be removed. It 
is well adapted for transplanting, the almost solid mass of matted 
roots holding the ball of earth firmly together, thus rendering the 
plant one of our easiest as well as safest to remove. 
The box would seem at one time to have been more abundant in 
our own land than it now is; thus, Boxley in Kent, Boxwell in 
Gloucestershire, and Boxhill in Surrey, were named from the quan- 
tity of this plant which was formerly found in their neighbourhoods. 
Privet, as a covert plant, has its advantages and disadvantages. 
On the one hand it is cheap, easily grown, and not at all fastidious 
about soil. When planted amongst trees it, however, generally 
assumes a loose, straggling habit, and as the shade increases it 
usually dies out altogether. Where the plantations are well-thinned 
and kept regularly so, privet, if a little care and trouble be expended 
on its cultivation, will succeed and form capital underwood. In 
planting privet the greatest care is necessary to prevent its being 
overdone. Close planting is always productive of the most 
unsatisfactory results, not only as regards the health of the plants, 
but management of the woods as well. Instead of filling up the 
