144 



FARMERS' REGISTER— HEDGES. 



cient stimuli both to industry and {^ood conduct. 

 When these are not enough, forfeiture of privi- 

 leges, confinement, and hard labor are resorted to. 

 There are also badges of honour — medals of cop- 

 per, silver and gold. Those who have the copper 

 medal may leave the colony on Sundays without 

 asking leave ; the silver is given to those who have 

 made some savings, and they are allowed to go be- 

 yond the colony in the intervals of labor on work- 

 ing days ; and when they are entitled to tiie gold 

 medal, by having shown that they clear £20 16s. 

 8d. a year by their labor, they are free tenants, 

 and released from all the regulations of the colony. 

 These privileges may, however, be suspended for 

 offences. 



In the course of seven years, from its first es- 

 tablishment, the colony of Frederick's Oord con- 

 tained a population of 6778, including that of Om- 

 me Schanze, under a more rigid control, and 

 among the number were 2174 orphans and found- 

 lings. The total number formin|j all the colonies 

 in Holland were stated to Mr. Jacob at 20,000, 

 but he thinks it exaggerated ; there were, however, 

 8000 in North Holland. Every attention is paid 

 to the education of the young; and, in a country 

 which has been always remarkable for its good 

 sense in matters of religious opinion, and which, 

 like Ireland, is, now that Flanders has been added 

 to Holland, made up of Catholics and Protestants, 

 it has, as Mr. Jacob remarks, " been deemed wise to 

 keep education apart from spiritual tuition" — a 

 •wisdom which, if ever Ireland shall be blessed by 

 tiie establishment of similar colonies, could not be 

 too implicitly followed. 



And there are five millions of acres in Ireland, 

 each of which is just as capable of supporting its 

 human beings, and in sixteen years repaying the 

 expense of putting them there, as those upon tlie 

 wilderness of sand, peat, and heatlier, at Freder- 

 ick's Oord in Holland. Indeed they are a great 

 deal more so; for very many of the Irish acres are 

 of a quality capable of yielding a good crop witli- 

 out any previous manure ; and few or none of them 

 need be devoted to so poor a grain-crop as rye — the 

 only one which the Dutch colonists appear yet to 

 have cultivated to advantage. Ireland, too, has 

 greatly the superiority in climate — in every natu- 

 ral advantage. And there can be no doubt that 

 the laboring Irish would work hard enough if they 

 were once put under proper regulation. 



Here then aremeansof relief at hand, sufficient- 

 ly ample to employ the whole of what is very im- 

 properly called the surplus population of Ireland, 

 (there can be no surplus population where there 

 are five million acres, out of about twenty that 

 might be cultivated, but are not ;) and this is a re- 

 lief which does not rest upon theory, but of which 

 we have as clear a practical demonstration as can 

 be obtained on any subject. 



Nor need the advantage be confined to Ireland. 

 There are, according to the statement already quo- 

 ted, four millions of acres in England and Wales, 

 that might be cultivated to advantage and six mil- 

 lions of the same description in Scotland ; so that, 

 in the whole island of Britain, there are teri mil- 

 lions of available acres, and fifteen millions in the 

 entire kingdom. With this fact on the one hand, 

 and the successful experiment of the Dutch on the 

 other, we speak, and write, and legislate about an 

 excessive population, and send the people all over 

 the world, at double the expense v/hich, in colo- 



nies similar to those of Holland, would make them 

 independent at home. 



The people of Scotland might be perhaps, left to 

 manage matters as they please, because there, so 

 far as we know, the able-bodied have not yet sent 

 in a formal claim for charity. But really, if there 

 were such colonies in England, the advantages 

 would be immense, both in saving to the public 

 and in preserving the habits of the working classes. 

 The amount of the poor-rate might then be dimin- 

 ished by move than one-half; and all the advanta- 

 ges of it might be secured without any of the evils. 

 If those who were able to work and could not find 

 employment were sent to the colony the parish 

 would be relieved of the burden of all save the 

 really necessitous; and the probability is that the 

 number who cannot now find work would thereby 

 be greatly diminished ; the large sums now annual- 

 ly spent in litigation, or in wheeling and counter- 

 marching paupers over the country, would be en- 

 tirely saved, as the parties who are passed to their 

 parishes are generally able to work, and could be 

 sent to the colony without any expense. 



Even culprits migiit be employed at a profit to 

 the public, as the delinquents are in many of the 

 Dutch establishments, instead of idly treading the 

 winds as they are now made to do at our tread- 

 mills. On the subject of labor, some of our coun- 

 trymen appear to have the most singular notions 

 that ever entered into human heads. If we do not 

 actually believe that men live upon labor and not 

 upon food, we act as if that were our belief — which 

 comes nearly to the same thing. That we may 

 not injure the honest laborer, we direct that the la- 

 bor of those whom we sentence to it as a punish- 

 ment shall be of no profit ; and we take the price 

 of their maintenance and of the machinery that they 

 waste in their idle drudgery out of the pockets of 

 those who do labor ; whereas, if we made the cul- 

 prits do any thing useful, the whole that they did, 

 would be, as compared with our system, a clear 

 gain. 



If we had such colonies as a resource to meet the 

 contingences of those who were able to work, and 

 our poor-rate freed from the t;ustomary litigation 

 and jobbing, our system of provision for the help- 

 less and the unfortunate would be very nearly per- 

 fect; and if we could bring about both for Ireland, 

 we should do more for her than if we were to spend 

 a thousand years in political legislation. We hope 

 that the society, to which we have alluded, will go 

 on vigorously ; they who would in any way thwart 

 or retard their progress are not the friends either 

 of Ireland or of England. 



ON hedges; by dr. JOSEPH JOHNSOIf. 



Read before the Horticultural Society, May, 8, 1833. 



I beg leave to offer a few observations on hedges, 

 or live fences. 



The scarcity and cost of good materials for tim- 

 ber fences, has led to the practice of commencing 

 inclosures with a ditch and bank. This practice, 

 however proper for economy, and the preservation 

 of the wood, is the worst that can be for the propa- 

 gation of live fences. The ditch drains the adja- 

 cent earth, so as to exhaust all the moisture requi- 

 site for the nourishment and growth of the tender 

 young cuttings or sets; and the bank, instead of 

 supporting, impoverishes them. The chief cause 

 of protracted growth — of difficulty and disappoint- 



