¥2 on the value and uses of the larch tree. Sept. 4. 
on a computation of the national saving that would 
accrue from the use of dead fences, in place of living, 
by obtaining the ground that is lost en embankments: 
by the additional produce that would be obtained 
even on the flat fields near to a dead fence, and that 
which can be got fromthe ground exhausted by the 
roots of bufhes and hedge plants; and fhould we add to 
these, the being freed from the ravages of sparrows, 
wherever hedges are employed as fences for corn 
fields ; and the benefit the farmer would derive from 
being freed of the trouble of annually rooting out 
noxious weeds, the seeds of which are blown from 
plants that spring up in his hedges, which cannot be 
there extirpated ; the amount of it would be so 
great as to exceed any calculation that a man would 
at the present time venture to put down in figures. 
There can however be no doubt but several millions 
of people might be well supported upon the ground 
that in this island at present is lost and deteriorated 
by these means *. 
* To give some slight idea of the lofs that is thus sustained in Bri« 
tain, I beg leave to refer to the recollection of every person who has 
travelled in England, if he has not remarked that in a great many 
places, particularly in the richest counties the fences in general 
consist of a great mound of earth, frequently ten or twelve feet 
in breadth ‘at the base, stuck full of thorns, briars, brambles, ha- 
zle, and a variety of other brufh wood, beyond which is usually 
a ditch of about six feet more. Nor can the plough approach wi- 
thin lefs than three feet of all this waste ground on either side, which 
is besides rendered almost barren and uselefs by the roots of the trees 
spreading in it. This would make a border of twenty-two feet a- 
round every field thus:inclosed, that may be said to be totally annihi- 
lated for the purposes of hufbandry. From a field of five acres so inclo. 
sed, if you suppose two sides of it bounded by a road, there wonld:be 
i 
