202 



No. LXIX. 



— ■ Young Planting, Dumfries Estate, Ayr- 



shire. 



This young planting on the south side of the road 

 is filled up with too many larch firs. These are ar- 

 rived at a fine height and age for thinning out, and 

 planting hardwoods amongst them ; thin them out to 

 six feet, and plant in oak, Spanish chesnut, elm, and 

 plane betwixt each alternately. Sheep have also 

 been in this planting. I cannot pass over this plant- 

 ing without noticing a most ignorant method used 

 through the whole of the young plantations, of plant- 

 ing and protecting the young hedges, which is the 

 great mean of their never coming to be proper fences; 

 the plan most frequently adopted, at least on the one 

 side is, as in the case here, the paling is drove up 

 the inside of the hedge, and the hedge is either left 

 out next to the field to be pastured, or on the road 

 side unprotected, and of course, the hedge is expos- 

 ed to cattle and sheep, either treading it down with 

 their feet or eating the grass from its roots, either of 

 which, particularly the breath and wool of sheep is 

 equally ruinous to young hedges. This mode of 

 procedure is like a man buttoning his great coat be- 

 hind his back to protect his belly from the storm. 

 With equal ease and the same expense, the paling 

 can be put up betwixt the hedge and the pasture 

 field or public road, and then it protects alike the 

 young hedge and the planting. This is one reason 

 why so many of the hedges are such pitiful fences on 

 this estate, and so full of gaps. 



