1 82 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



have enjoyed over land where to-day we have to go 

 from gate to gate. When the fashion of planting 

 the banks with a double beech hedge originated is 

 not clear, but men are alive now who helped to plant 

 a great many of them. There was at Exford a large 

 nursery of beech plants, and the owner realised a lot 

 of money by selling them to the farmers. The Forest 

 Enclosure Award in 1815 ordains the planting of 

 beech on the top, and also the staking of the two 

 sides with withy stakes, so many to a rod. Traces 

 of this can be seen now, but most of the stakes seem 

 to have perished. 



The custom of the country Is to let the beech 

 hedge grow for about fifteen years, thus forming an 

 admirable shelter for stock, and enabling both sheep 

 and cattle to be kept out on bleak, exposed hills, 

 where otherwise they would suffer severely from the 

 cold storms which sweep over the country. At the 

 end of fifteen years the tenant cuts and lays down 

 the fence, keeping the cuttings for firewood, and a 

 new hedge springs up and grows for another fifteen 

 years. A careful examination when the leaves are 

 off will show how many times the hedge has been 

 cut and laid, and thus the age can be approximately 

 ascertained. 



Except in the immediate neighbourhood of old 

 farms or villages, it is rare to find any hedges cut 

 more than four times, which would give an age of 

 about seventy to eighty years, and there is very little 

 hedgerow timber suggestive of a greater age. The 



