CHAPTER VIII 



Hedgerow Trees & Hedges 



THE hedges and hedgerow trees are among 

 the fairest possessions of our beautiful country. 

 They form the chief features of English land- 

 scape, and give to it a beauty unknown on the 

 Continent of Europe, where field joins field in 

 dreary monotony without hedge or fence. It 

 has, no doubt, ever been so. Trees were con- 

 venient to mark off different holdings, and they 

 were connected by live fences grown for shelter ; 

 so hedges and hedgerow trees have always been, 

 along with scattered remnants and other patches 

 of woodland, among the great features of rural 

 England. In the sixteenth century Holinshed 

 tells us how, * in the woodland countries there is 



235 



