Game Coverts : their Formation and Management 175 



pretty abundant, and requires neither care nor manage- 

 ment, beyond preventing its too free incursions along the 

 margins of roads and shooting drives. Where, however, 

 bare patches do occur, the sowing of seed may be relied upon 

 as not only a speedy but most effectual method of increasing 

 the cover. Where seeds are intended to be sown, the soil 

 should be dug over, and all hard clods or lumps broken down, 

 and the whole made smooth and fine with a rake. The seeds 

 may be sown in spring, and afterwards covered over with 

 hardwood branches as a preservative against the depreda- 

 tions of small birds and game. 



The best natural game coverts are those composed of 

 bramble, gorse, heath, hazel, holly, blackthorn, elder, black- 

 berry, bracken or the stronger growing grasses, these being 

 arranged according to merit, and each possessing some pecu- 

 liar feature, specially recommending it for planting in certain 

 soils, altitudes or situations. 



In the formation of artificial game-coverts, when not only 

 shelter and protection for game are required, but ornamental 

 effect as well, the judicious grouping of the different shrubs 

 should never be lost sight of, more especially when the coverts 

 are within the park or policy grounds, and visible from 

 drives and roads. Formality and stiffness are so often the 

 characteristics of the present style of shrub planting, that 

 in many cases our woodlands seem utterly destitute of that 

 variety of outline and contrast of light and shade so essential 

 to picturesque beauty. In planting evergreen shrubs for 

 the two-fold purpose of covert and ornament, the best 

 method is to plant each variety in separate groups or clumps. 

 No hard and fast lines can be laid down as to the distribu- 

 tion or number of plants to be used in the clumps, which, to 

 a great extent, must depend on the size and shape of the 

 ground as well as taste of the operator. The clumps should, 

 however, be placed at irregular distances apart, be irregular 

 in size and outline, and with from forty or fifty to one 

 hundred plants in each bearing in mind that game of all 

 kinds delight in small patches of shrubs with abundance 

 of open space around each, but detest in a most marked 

 manner continuous masses or jungles of underwood. 



