Book IV. FENCES USED IN AGRICULTURE. 431 



too evident to require particular notice. And as there are few tracts sp rich as to admit 

 of crops being carried off the land for a succession of years, without the intervention of 

 green crops consumed where they grow, fences, of some description or other, can very 

 rarely be dispensed with, even in the most fertile and highly improved districts." The 

 same able author complains of the general mismanagement of this branch of husbandry, 

 by which means fences not only often become comparatively useless, but even injurious 

 by the space they occupy, and the weeds they shelter. This, he says, " is particularly 

 the case with thorn hedges, which are too often planted in soils where they can never, by 

 any management, be expected to become a sufficient ^fence ; and which, even when 

 planted on suitable soils, are in many cases so much neglected when young, as ever 

 afterwards to be a nuisance, instead of being an ornamental, permanent, and impenetra- 

 ble barrier, as with proper training, they might have formed in a few years. (Sup. 

 Encyc. Brit, art. Ag.) Fences may be considered in regard to their emplacement or 

 siuation, and their form or kind. 



Sect. I. Of the Situation or Emplacement of Fences. 



2768. The emplacement or disposition of fences on a farm or an estate, will 

 depend on the purposes for which they are made. In laying out an estate, their 

 disposition will depend on the natural surface and situation of roads ; water-courses ; on 

 the lands to be planted with trees, and on a variety of other considerations which will 

 come under review in the succeding part of this work. The situation of fences on a 

 farm depends on a great variety of circumstances, as the extent of the farm ; its climate, 

 whether pasture, or arable, or mixed ; on the inequalities of the surface ;^ on the nature 

 of the soil ; on the supply of water, and on the course of husbandry to be followed. 



2769. In determining the SM^cZimiows o/" an arable farm, the excellent author above 

 quoted observes, " whatever may be the kind of fence which it is thought advisable to 

 adopt, we would recommend that particular attention be paid to the course of crops 

 which the quality of the soil points out as the most advantageous ; and that upon all 

 farms, not below a medium size, there should be twice the number of enclosures that 

 there are divisions or breaks in the course. Thus, if a six years' rotation be thought the 

 most profitable, there should be twelve enclosures, two of which are always under the 

 same crop. One very obvious advantage in this arrangement is, that it tends greatly to 

 equalize labor, and, with a little attention, may contribute much to equalize the produce 

 also. On large farms, where all the land under turnips and clover, for instance, is 

 near the extremity of the grounds, or at a considerable distance from the buildings, sup- 

 posed to be set down near the centre, it is clear, that the labor of supplying the house 

 and straw-yard stock with these crops, as well as the carriage of the manure to the field, 

 is much greater than if the fields were so arranged, as that the half of each of these 

 crops had been nearer the offices. But by means of two fields for each crop in the rota- 

 tion, it is quite easy to connect together one field near the houses, with another at a 

 distance, and thus to have a supply at hand for the home stock, while the distant crops 

 may be consumed on the ground. The same equalization of labor must be perceived in 

 the cultivation of the corti-tields, and in harvesting the crops. The time lost in travelling 

 to some of the fields, when working by the plough, is of itself a matter of some 

 consequence on large farms. But the advantages of this arrangement are not confined 

 to the equalization and economy of labor ; it may also, in a great measure, render the 

 annual produce uniform and equable, notwithstanding a considerable diversity in the 

 quality of the soil. A field of an inferior soil may be connected with one that is naturally 

 rich, and in the consumption of the green crops, as well as in the allowance of manure, 

 the poor land may be gradually brought nearer, in the quantity and quality of its pro- 

 duce, to the rich, without any injury to the latter. Thus a field under turnips may be 

 so fertile, that it would be destructive to the succeeding corn crops to consume the whole 

 or the greater part on the ground ; while another may be naturally so poor, or so defi- 

 cient in tenacity, as to make it inexpedient to spare any part for consumption elsewhere. 

 By connecting these two under the same crop, by carrying from the one what turnips 

 are wanted for the feeding-houses and straw-yards, and eating the whole crop of the 

 other on the ground with sheep, the ensuing crop of corn will not be so luxuriant on the 

 former as to be unproductive, while the latter will seldom fail to yield abundantly. The 

 same plan will also be advantageous in the case of other crops. Hay or green clover 

 may be taken from the richer field, and the poorer one depastured ; and on the one 

 wheat may succeed both turnips and clover, while the more gentle crops of barley and 

 oats are appropriated to the less fertile field. These observations are particularly applicable 

 to turnip soils, of such a quality as not to require more than one year's pasturage, and 

 which are therefore cultivated with corn and green crops alternately ; but the same prin- 

 ciple may be extended to clay lands, and such as require to be depastured two or more 

 years in succession. 



