SUMMER [Chap. 



fences, stopping of muses (holes in hedges that 

 they pass through), bushing the gates well, beat- 

 ing the hedges and hedge-rows round the field, and 

 round the neighbouring fields, by day, and, in addi- 

 tion, hunting the field with a spaniel, or poacher's 

 dog, in the night, keep these worst of enemies 

 off; but if you have the misfortune to be cursed 

 with them in great numbers, and dare not de- 

 stroy or annoy them, you cannot have my 

 Corn, and the owner of the land must be content 

 with such rent as a tenant thus deprived will be 

 able to pay him. Pheasants and partidges may 

 be easily kept off until the corn be out of dan- 

 ger; for they do not work by night, and they 

 smell powder as far as a rook or a magpie ; but 

 the four-legged plagues come by night; and 

 though the report of a gun might alarm them, 

 even in tlie night, if near to them, they are far 

 too cunning not to know that sportsmen cannot 

 see far in the dark. The law, therefore, which 

 forbids, in certain cases, the killing of these ani- 

 mals, ^vill, whenever they abound, forbid, in fact, 

 the growing of corn. 



90. The corn having been protected against 

 birds and slugs, until it be about three inches 

 high, is quite safe from them for the remainder 

 of its career. Not so, however, from Jtares and 

 rabbits : they will continue to feed on it until it 

 be a foot high. But, leaving them aside, as an 



