16 ORMISTOUN'S LETTERS 



never will doe without being clip'd and made very thick and 

 strong like a Garden hedge, and if it chances to grow very well 

 and equal, is well clip'd and well fenc'd from cattle, about 20 

 years hence our Border hedge may be trusted alone with cattle. 

 You can'^t believe that in the Wood, air enough can touch it 

 so low upon the ground to make it thrive well, so being in the 

 Wood required the more it to be raisM for the sake of air. 

 Add to all this. If you have obeyed my orders in picking out 

 the best of the poor, starv'd quick Setts you had in Nursery 

 for the ditch at bottome of the Wood cutt this year and for 

 the addition to the Nursery, I am sure what remain are fitt 

 for planting out no where ; So I am surprised how you came 

 to tell my Bro'" you had thorns for it. Doing things by halfs 

 is the foolishest v/ay of throwing away money. Had you made 

 a Common ditch and planted a thin rowe of these poor thorns 

 a top of the bank they when taken root in some years might 

 have run up a little, and if you had run the Bank full of Black 

 thorn and Bramble as I ordered at the foot of the Wood, by 

 the time cattle came to be lett into it, there might have been 

 a fence by help of the ditch and bank cover'd w* the Black 

 thorn and Bramble, but for your Border it never will make a 

 fence and never will signify a farthen towards inclosing any 

 thing, but upon the terms I mentioned above. If this has the 

 fate my advice to the Wights had when they were at their 

 Borders 7 years ago it will just turn out as their's has done, 

 and seven years hence it will be found that I was in the right. 

 I think you in the wrong in planting young Nursery among 

 the Oaks, I rather crop the ground as I wrott before and then 

 all that ground will be clear at once this time next year and 

 such crops as I mentioned will doe the present trees service and 

 the ground also. You can^t be straittened for Nursery ground 

 just now w* the help of the addition. I wish to know how 

 many of these Oaks remain. 



21 Dec^ 1734. 



You know it was fear of taking too much business upon 

 hand this year when we had so much to overtake, made me 

 lay aside thoughts of making real Inclosures and devisions 

 which would have been fencible in the Wood. Let Alex"" 

 Cokb: his man and Ch: Cokb: go directly to fencing of the 



