684 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part III. 



annually at least two and a half loads of good hay, in place of annually rendering the 

 produce of this acre unmarketable. The water of some fields (as 1 6, 18, and part of 

 19), ran in a diagonal direction through another (15), two acres of which might have 

 been irrigated by it to advantage. 



4220. In the farm when altered {fig. 546.), the fields are more uniform in shape 

 and size ; their sides are parallel, and better adapted for ploughing the lands in straight 



ridges. All the surface-water is carried oiF by the open fence drains. Access is had to 

 every field by the shortest possible road from the farmery. Only two-thirds the number 

 of gates formerly required are requisite. Fifty acres are rendered useful which were 

 formerly lost, or pernicious, by occupying space for which rent was paid, and by 

 harbouring insects and noxious weeds ; and as much rich vegetable earth is obtained 

 from the old hedge banks, as spread abroad in every dii-ection may be said to manure 

 at least ten acres. The whole is more open and healthful ; and, from the number of 

 single trees thrown into the fields, more elegant, and bearing a greater resemblance to 

 a park. A part near the house (1, 2, 3) is in permanent pasture, and the rest (4, 5, 6, 

 &c.) under a course of fallow, wheat, clover, beans, wheat. 



4221. As an example of altering the fields and cunsolidating a farm, we submit the case 

 of a meadow-farm, with the arable lands in a common field state, (fig. 547.) By an 

 act of enclosure, these scattered arable lands (a), were exchanged for others adjoin- 

 ing the meadow grounds (fig. 548 6), and the whole rendered more compact and 

 commodious. This farm being intersected by a public lane affords an example in 

 which no private roads are wanting. The size and shape of the fields was improved, and 

 the broad fences reduced as in the preceding case, and attended with the same advan- 

 tages in an agricultural point of view. 



4222. But though in altering broad fences there are obvious and indisputable advantages to the farmer, 

 yet, as justly observed by Loch, gain is not every thing. " The fences on the Marquess of Stafford's 

 estates," he says, " were liable to the same objection which is applicable to a great proportion of the 

 counties of England. They are not composed of quick, at least but in a scanty degree ; they for the most 

 part consist of bushes, growing from the stump of every sort of forest-tree, intermixed with hazel, birch, 

 hornbeam, maple, alder, willow, &c. They are planted on high and dry mounds, and thus are subject to 

 constant decay. They occupy too much ground, provided agriculture alone was the occupation of life. 

 But as they give great protection, when they thrive, to the game, they become an important object of 

 preservation, inasmuch as every thing must be of consequence which contributes to the sport, and has the 

 effect of retaining the gentry of England much upon their estates. For this reason, it may occasionally 

 be proper to consider of the best way to preserve these hedges at the least expense, in place of substituting 

 more perfect ones in their stead ; nor should one object exclusively be attended to in the agricultural 

 improvements of so great and so wealthy a country. 



4223. When farm-lands are exposed to high luinds, interspersing them with strips or 

 masses of plantation is attended with obviously important advantages. Not only are 

 such lands rendered more congenial to the growth of grass, and corn, and the health of 

 pasturing animals, but the local climate is improved. The fact, that the climate may be 

 thus improved, has, in very many instances, been sufficiently established. It is, indeed, 

 astonishing how much better cattle thrive in fields even but moderately sheltered than 



