20 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



ditches around and through the land form sufficient and the only 

 fences. In the county of Northumberland, and in the Lothians, 

 the enclosures are very extensive, and, excepting on the outlines, 

 no fences appear. The plough, in such case, when it starts, 

 takes its course, and runs to the end of these long fields without 

 interruption. 



Mr. Pusey, in Berkshire, on one of the best managed estates 

 which I have visited, has induced many of his tenants to take 

 away the inner fences and leave the fields open. Sheep are, of 

 course, never suffered to graze or roam at pleasure over these 

 large fields, but are fed in enclosures formed of movable hurdles 

 in different parts of the field, where their manure is required. 

 Cattle never go at large upon them ; and the convenience of 

 cultivating where the lands are thus open, to say nothing of the 

 beauty of the appearance, in addition to other advantages already 

 alluded to, is at once obvious and decisive. 



VIII. IRON AND SUNKEN FENCES. 



I shall speak in this place of two kinds of fences which are 

 common on. gentlemen s seats, and one of which may be safely 

 recommended to my own countrymen. The first is an iron 

 fence, called here an invisible fence. This is made of stout iron 

 wire, about one third of an inch in diameter, and consists of four 

 or five bars or rods, with upright pieces of iron, about an inch 

 and a quarter in width, and about one third of an inch in thick 

 ness, placed at about six feet distance from each other. Through 

 these upright and flat pieces of iron the bars or rods are passed, 

 and they serve to keep them secure. Every alternate one of 

 these upright bars has a foot to it, and being sunk in the ground 

 about a foot or more, serves as a post to keep the fence steady ; 

 and occasionally these posts, if so they may be called, have side 

 supports, thus ; I these, of course, increase the strength of 

 the fence, but A\ they are not indispensable. These fences 

 are very cheap, / I \ on account of the abundance of iron and 

 the facility with which it is wrought ; and being kept painted 

 commonly of a green color, they do not appear until you approach 



