12 MEMORIES OF THE SHIRES 



oak. In seven or eight years the thorn fence was 

 cut and laid, and then, if properly done, a hedge 

 grew up that would stop the wildest bullock from 

 straying, and turn over any horse that tried to go 

 through it. Cutting and laying a fence is an art 

 confined to the skilled labourer of the Midlands. 

 The thorn is cut half-way through as close to the 

 ground as possible, and is then bent down between 

 stakes, the latter being bound together by twisted 

 briars or some other pliant wood. The thorn that 

 is cut still lives and grows, whilst a wealth of young 

 shoots are thrown out from the bottom. In ten or 

 fifteen years the old layers would have commenced 

 to die out, and the young shoots would have devel- 

 oped into a tall bullfinch. Every year after that 

 the hedge would gradually be showing more daylight 

 at bottom, and the fly-stricken bullock or the im- 

 petuous fox-hunter would have no difficulty in 

 forcing a passage. The good farmer would then 

 proceed to cut and lay again, so that the youth and 

 vigour of the fence might be revived. In this way 

 the hedge, in a period of twenty years, varies from 

 the new-cut stake and bound to the high, straggling 

 bullfinch. It is not the custom to lay all the fences 

 on the farm in one year, but to do a length every 

 winter, so that the fox-hunter finds the thorny 

 obstacles in every stage of growth, giving him that 

 pleasing diversity of jumps which is one of the 

 greatest charms in riding across Leicestershire. 



I have been tempted into this long explanation 

 in order to show the absurdity of saying the country 

 is more difficult to cross than it was twenty years 

 ago, also because every man who hunts is not ac- 

 quainted with agricultural details, and therefore 



