Fencing for woodland 143 



and northern Europe, on mountain or plain, which are 

 without fence of any kind, young or old trees as they 

 come, boldly fringing river, rocky valley, or plain. No 

 stiff or hard lines anywhere ; the wood gracing the near 

 land as the clouds grace the sky, while far away the 

 hills massed and crested with Pines show, fold beyond 

 fold, back into the delicate distance, in fine harmony in 

 all lights, but loveliest when the sun bids the woods 

 good night in a sea of golden-purple air. If it be well 

 to be free of living fences of Wild Rose, May, and 

 Holly, how much more the costly iron or wire fence, so 

 ugly in any place where we seek beauty of wood or 

 landscape ? This freedom from the ceaseless care and 

 cost of fences is not only for those who plant for beauty, 

 but the men who look to their woods for profit only in 

 doing their work in the simplest way find the palm of 

 beauty too. But this cannot be where the underwood 

 plan is an endless annoyance, with its cutting up of 

 woods and rides, the underwood when cut in recent 

 years remaining in the woods for more than a year after 

 the cutting a nuisance for various reasons. If we wish 

 to preserve some underwood it is easy to keep it near 

 the centre of the wood, and so dispense with fencing 

 from cattle, or we may even grow it as at present with- 

 out sacrificing all our woodland scenery and any hope 

 of profit from woodland. Our way in Britain of planting 

 in skinny strips, instead of massing the wood naturally, 

 very much adds to the cost and ugliness of the iron 

 fence, both sides of the narrow strip being often fenced 

 with iron, and on some estates the money spent on this 

 rubbish of iron and wire would suffice to plant all the 

 poor land of a parish. 



No hard line. These words are written in a grassy 



