62 My Little Farm 



One dark, wild night about a year ago I went 

 along by this fine hedge on the safe side of a gale, 

 struck a match, and found that I could hold it 

 alight in the shelter, which extended far into the 

 field, because the wind, striking an immovable 

 square edge like that, takes a long leap upward in 

 the line of least resistance. What is the money 

 value of it in plant and beast ? We cannot 

 measure it in money, but it must be great, and 

 yet it is only a bye-product of the fencing. I 

 remember sowing the seed of this hedge with my 

 own hands in less than two hours. That was 

 twelve years ago, and I do not think the whole 

 fence has cost me more than the equivalent of 

 half a day's work since then. Who would not 

 give so much for the flowers and the perfume 

 during so many months in a single year, through a 

 season, too, when daylight bloom is impossible, 

 unless from the bulbous tribe and their expensive 

 artificialism ? We pay for beauty by the yard, 

 and trample on higher qualities of it by the mile, 

 merely because we have them for nothing. I am 

 certain that if the common gorse were quite 

 unknown to us, and some enterprising nurseryman 

 came out with a sample bush in bloom, he could 

 make a fortune in a year by propagating it. The 

 gorse is a legume. As such, it gives a hardier and 

 more durable growth in the metallic soils, not in 

 too deeply nitrogenous fertility. I give the young 

 hedge a good dose of potash and phosphates when 

 the plants are strong enough to stand it, about the 

 tecond year. This appears to make a permanent 



