On the Fence 63 



difference. On a soil insufficiently metallic, failing 

 the things mentioned, try lime. The cost is 

 trifling, and it may be the cheapest way to a 

 perfect fence, not to mention the shelter and the 

 beauty. There is no permanent way to keep up 

 earth fences but by getting permanent things to 

 grow in them, and the common gorse is my 

 favourite, unless where the water level is too high. 

 Like other legumes, the gorse cannot stand water 

 for any length of time. 



Let the hedge grow as it will for four or five 

 years. Then cut at eighteen inches, every cut 

 just over a joint. In the following years, the 

 stumps will thicken stout and strong against the 

 storm, instead of wattling helplessly in the air, 

 working in the wind as levers to loosen the earth 

 in the fence, making round holes by the roots, 

 admitting the air, falling down, splitting the 

 crowns, killing the plants and turning the whole 

 scheme into wasted energy. Much of the work 

 on a farm is such that an hour at the right time 

 may save days later. Gorse is the best thing I 

 know to grow in a desired direction by laying it 

 down with a sod on its neck, and I have closed up 

 a gap of twelve feet in two years by " layering " 

 in this way. I prefer our native common seed 

 to the hybrid import, because it grips the fence, 

 bushes out, covers its ground, and keeps down out 

 of the air so much better. Its seeds, unlike those 

 of the hybrid, may scatter and root in the fields, 

 but not in mine, because the soil is too rich and 

 the grass too big to let the seedlings live. Yet the 



