AND THEIR MANAGEMENT 179 



to clear away all the rabbits from two and a half acres, 

 which is quite sufficient for a good gorse covert, if pro- 

 perly tended ; and when once the bunnies are banished 

 your care should be never to let them reappear again. 

 Moreover, with the rabbits you will have banished 

 brass snares, traps, poaching curs (both four-legged 

 and two), and will have brought the great essential to 

 fox-preservation to your covert, to wit, absolute quiet. 

 But when half the covert is cut down this absolute 

 quiet is not so easily secured. 



When a covert is still holding well, owing, perhaps, 

 to its careful preservation, it is often difficult for those 

 in authority to order it to be cut down, even if it is 

 growing tall and hollow. But to let it stand for yet 

 another year, as is so often done, is the most mistaken 

 policy. Whenever the stems grow bare and one sees 

 on stooping that the covert has lost its matted ap- 

 pearance and become hollow, doicn ivith it ! It may 

 hold for another year, but foxes don't like it, and the 

 young gorse will spring more quickly if it be cut 

 before the stems become very thick, and their strong 

 roots take too much out of the soil. 



" A stitch in time saves nine." So when the covert, 

 or a part of it, is condemned, set to work at once to 

 cut it, and when cut and removed let the fence receive 

 your best attention and see that all gaps be mended. 

 The cutting of a gorse covert was very easily managed 

 long ago ; indeed, there was a time when folk would 

 pay to be allowed to cut and cart the furze away, but 

 now furze is valueless as fuel. No baker wants it for 

 his oven as in olden days ; no cottager seems to care 

 about it for his fire ; and so one has to pay pretty 



