144 FOXES AT HOME. 



Nature a bit by filling up the gaps with 

 gorse seedlings, bushy plants about a foot or 

 eighteen inches high, digging holes and 

 planting them just like any ordinary tree, but 

 not too close ; from three to five feet is not a 

 bad distance, when not pressed for time and a 

 lasting covert is required. It is extraordinary 

 how quickly these plants run up, in some four 

 or five years according to the soil ; the time 

 slips by without your noticing it, and you soon 

 have your reward. This covert should not be 

 fenced in, but cattle, horses, and sheep 

 encouraged to graze through it and to crop the 

 young shoots, thus making each plant thick 

 and bushy and when they begin to approach 

 close to each other the cattle will soon avoid 

 going through the covert of their own accord. 



With no cattle to crop the shoots and keep 

 down the herbage around the young plants, 

 they soon become either choked by the rank 

 growth of grass or bracken or run rampike, and 

 are easily destroyed by a heavy fall of snow. 



Some years ago we planted two coverts as 

 above, but unfortunately one had to be fenced, 

 the consequence being that that left open, 

 though taking longer time to mature, was iust 



