nOW TO GROW GOOD FENCES. 261 



fine, as the estate would be improved by having 

 perfect fences, and therefore would fetch a better 

 rent, it would appear to be the landlord's duty to 

 see it attended to, and not to expect to charge a 

 tenant for bad fences, and to insist upon his con- 

 stantly mending them into the bargain, or it will 

 naturally follow that they will seldom be up to a 

 high standard of perfection. 



2. A ten ant-at- will, or even a leaseholder, should 

 not be expected to plant new fences, or to cultivate 

 those already planted, when it involves expenses 

 from which he cannot reap the benefit. In the first 

 place, it is not only the planting, but weeding and 

 pruning — not merely slashing — that is required, 

 all involving time, expense, and judgment, which 

 no man would be justified in expending upon a pre- 

 carious holding. 



But take the case of a leaseholder for seven years. 

 In our own parish, on the light oolite sands, is a 

 quick-set hedge, which has been badly planted — now 

 entering upon the fourth year since— upon the top 

 of a thin mound of sandy soil, from four to five feet 

 high. The quicks are not so good as when they 

 were planted; it can never make a good hedge. 

 Briars and brambles, and various shrubs common to 

 oolite soils, will smother out the quicks, and alto- 

 gether it will result in failure. Here the landlord 

 should not expect his tenant to weed, and it is not 

 worth his while to even find "rough timber" for 

 forming a defence of such a hedge from the cattle, 

 nor will it pay the tenant to employ a carpenter to 

 work it. In this case the landlord should level the 

 soil and re-plant the hedge— not on a mound of sand, 



