ARBORICULTURE IX HAMPSHIRE. 33 



is obtained in addition to the timber crop. Formerly, firewood was 

 produced extensively from old pollards, but it is now known that 

 the most productive crops are grown from stools near the ground. 



In the upland districts to which I now refer, large quantities 

 of firewood are derived from hedge-rows. These vary from 5 to 

 20 yai'ds wide, and divide most of the fields in North Hants. 

 Scottish agriculturists, who are accustomed to neatly-trimmed 

 hedges and well-cultivated fields, consider wide hedge-rows an 

 excessive waste of land. They are peculiarly adapted as breed- 

 ing-places for pheasants and partridges, and add materially to the 

 stock of game in the proprietor's preserves. They form excellent 

 covers for hares and rabbits ; and where farmers are prohibited 

 from killing these, wide hedge-rows are a continual source of 

 annoyance. In exposed situations, they shelter live stock and the 

 adjacent fields ; and where the climate is excessively dry, they 

 retain and transmit moisture to the atmosphere where it is most 

 required. The proximity of South Hants to the English Channel 

 insures an abundance of showers which renders retention of 

 moisture undesirable, and these wide-spreading hedge-rows are 

 gradually disappearing. In North Hants, on the contrary, agri- 

 culture often suffers from extreme and long-continued drought, 

 and such hedge-rows are considered essential to successful farm- 

 ing. I, however, prefer neatly-trimmed hedges, and planting 

 systematically done, whether for shelter or for the retention of 

 moisture. The fences generally throughout the county are in 

 an unsatisfactory state ; they are merely long, straggling rows of 

 underwood, sometimes planted with a ditch and bank, but often 

 without any preparation of the surface soil. They receive no 

 trimming nor weeding, and are only cut and splashed once in nine 

 years. They are, as a rule, full of gaps, unsightly, unsubstantial, 

 little calculated to resist the encroachments of cattle, and are 

 receptacles for weeds and rubbish. Where wide hedge-rows are 

 disappearing, we occasionally see a quick hedge properly treated, 

 and yearly becoming more compact and durable, as if to testify 

 that Hampshire fences are a mistake. The advantages claimed 

 for hedge-rows are briefly these : — Shelter for live stock and the 

 leeward crops ; production of stakes and wattles required for 

 temporary fences ; affording a supply of bavins for rick bottoms ; 

 and benefiting agriculture generally by contributing to the humidity 

 of an arid atmosphere. I may state a case which illustrates, in 

 a remarkable manner, the power of trees to absorb and retain 



VOL. VIII., part I. c 



