THE FORMATION AND MANAGEMENT OF GAME COVERTS. 



where the woods are kept sufficiently thin, spontaneous 

 undergrowth is usually pretty abundant, and requires 

 neither care nor management, 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 thoroughly prepared by a slight 

 picking, after which it may 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 after- 

 wards covered over with hardwood branches as a preservative 

 against the depredations of small birds and game. 



The best natural game coverts are those composed of 

 bramble, gorse, heath, hazel, blackthorn, elder, blaeberry 

 bracken, or the stronger growing grasses, these being 

 arranged according to merit, and each possessing some 

 peculiar 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 ornamen- 

 tal 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 seperate groups or 

 clumps. C) No hard and fast lines can be laid down as to the 

 distribution 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. They should, 

 however, be placed at irregular distances apart, be irregular 

 in size and outline, and with from a dozen to forty or fifty 

 plants in each bearing in mind that game of all kinds 



delight in small patches of shrubs with abundance of open 



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