CHAPTER XVIII 



FENCING FOR WOODLAND 



An immense amount of energy in our country is 

 given to fencing, which is wholly avoided in some other 

 lands. Our way of keeping stock in the open air instead 

 of in sheds, and the abundance of game destructive to 

 young trees, makes fencing a necessity, and to simplify 

 it as far as may be and to make it enduring is worth 

 thinking about. Many act as if the iron and wire fences 

 were the best— a serious error, as the wood should 

 fence itself, and there are no fencing plants so good as 

 those which grow naturally in woodland, such as Quick. 

 The worst of all are iron and wire fences, which give no 

 shelter, and moreover are ugly and dangerous. 



To reduce the extent of fencing. This is one of the 

 motives which should lead us to plant in more visible 

 and natural masses. In the common ring, specimen, 

 and spinney planting there is often more fence visible 

 than plants. No artificial fence that man can invent is 

 half as simple, enduring, easy to keep up, or effective 

 as a Quick hedge set on a turf bank. The cost of this 

 should be less than that of an iron fence. Even in 

 badly-infested places, when we are obliged to use an 

 iron fence to support barbed wire, we should always 

 plant a Quick fence inside it to provide for the future 

 fencing of the wood. The weak point about the Quick 

 fence is that the plants are usually so small that it is 

 expensive to protect them. In many places it would be 



