FORESTS. 45 



they seem to be always out of repair, and give the country 

 quite a shabby appearance, and as the upright posts are often 

 rotten at the bottom, a six-months' old calf can shoot through 

 them in many places just as he could through a sheet of brown 

 paper. These fences are only calculated to last twenty years. 

 And now let us see according to Bishop Agardth's calculation, 

 what an expense they are to the landholder, and what a quan- 

 tity of valuable wood goes to their maintenance. Taking the 

 value of a fathom of wood as it stands in the forests at 3 rqr., 

 and reckoning each such fathom as three feet long, six feet 

 broad, and six feet high, and using upon the average four 

 trees, and calculating that this fathom of wood will furnish 

 three loads of long wood, each being sufficient for five 

 fathoms of fencing, then, each fathom of fencing will cost 

 20 6., and adding 10 6. per fathom for labour, we may 

 reckon in round numbers the total cost of such fencing at 

 30 6., or about 4d. per fathom. 



Sweden is divided into hemmans or mantals, after which 

 the size and the relative value of an estate is reckoned ; a 

 whole hemman being the limit of this reckoning, after which 

 the hemman is divided into one-half or one-fourth mantals, 

 meaning in the olden time as large a piece of land as 

 would support a man and his family, whence the name is 

 derived. 



In Sweden there are 65,000 whole hemmans, and they 

 calculate that each hemman has to keep up , 4 700 fathoms 

 of fences, which, reckoning that a fence stands for twenty 

 years, gives us 235 fathoms every year, at an expense of 

 12 sk., or 3d. per fathom at the lowest, or 59 rqr. per hem- 

 man, or 2,000,000 rix-dollars yearly, for maintaining the 

 fences of all the 65,000 hemmans. For the 65,000 hem- 

 mans 305,500,000 fathoms of fencing are required, and 

 60,000,000 trees great and small will be annually consumed 

 in keeping them up. 



To remedy this dreadful waste, the only plan, as Agardth 

 observes, would be to plant willow or sallow fences which 

 will grow on all cultivated lands. I see now that many gen- 

 tlemen are improving the style of fences on their estates, 



