Notes on English Fencing. 



feet higher above the stone work, and leaving it four and a half feet broad on the top. Then 

 planting the top with two rows of hawthorne. 



This is, safely enough, spoken of by this writer as " a fence that is perma- 

 nently efficient for the purpose of subdivision and boundary as well as an 

 excellent protection for stock." The size of these inclosures varied from six 

 to eight and ten acres. 



In another case of enclosure on the Black Down Hills in Devon, under 

 Act of Parliament, 



' ' The outside and partition fences of all the new allotments are laid out on a ten feet base, 

 upon which a mound with sodded sides is raised five feet high, and left six feet wide at the top. 

 These banks are all enclosed with a ditch four feet wide and three feet deep. On each brow of 

 the mound a wattled fence about two feet high, within which is planted the double hedge-row. 

 On the top of the mound, two rows of withy or sallow cuttings, placed three feet apart. 

 Between these are planted oak, ash, beech, birch, alder, hazel, dog- wood, or thorns, and at a 

 distance of every ten feet along the middle of the mound, alternate, Scotch and spruce fir are 

 planted. The size of these inclosures varies from five to eight acres." 



The results of this change in the land system, which has through many 

 generations been adapting the area of England to the home and uses of many 

 tillers of the soil, are in the same direction with the present tendency of land 

 divisions in the Southern States, the effects and possibilities of which we shall 

 discuss further on in these pages. According to Mr. Caird, (Landed Inter- 

 est), in Great Britain there are about 560,000 tenant farmers, of whom sev- 

 enty per cent occupy less than fifty acres each ; twelve per cent between fifty 

 and one hundred acres ; eighteen per cent over one hundred acres. Five 

 thousand occupy between five hundred and one thousand acres each. 



How general became this transformation of English commons into close 

 fields, and the effect of the system, is well told in the report of Henry Col- 

 man, an eminent American agricultural authority, who made an extended 

 tour in Europe in 1844, and has given in his valuable work the following 

 reference to the inclosures of Great Britain. 



" The farm inclosures in England are of various extent, from ten to twenty and fifty acres. 

 In some parts of England they resemble the divisions of New England farms, and are of various 

 sizes, but generally small and of all shapes, often not exceeding four or five acres. It is reported 

 of a farmer of Devonshire that he lately cultivated over one hundred acres of wheat in fifty dif- 

 ferent fields. On a Staffordshire farm a sixty-five acre turnip field was in eight inclosures. It 

 was subsequently divided into three fields, and nearly half a mile of fence saved. Ninety-one 

 acres in the same neighborhood were originally in twenty-seven inclosures. Some of the fences 

 in the latter instance occupied land from three to four yards wide that the plough never touched. 

 In parts of Lincolnshire, inclosures average fifty acres each, and in the fens, or redeemed lands, 

 the ditches are the only fences. In Northumberland and the Lothians the inclosures are 

 extensive, and, excepting on the out-lines, there are no fences. In Berkshire, it has latterly be- 

 come the practice to remove inner fences, and leave the fields open." 



It will be of interest to close this reference to English fencing by a view of 

 to day, from an intelligent observer. Richard Grant White in his recent 

 volume on Rural England, says. 



"The notion that the hedge is the universal .fence in England, is erroneous. Even in the 

 south, where hedges are most common, post and rail fences are even more common ; for the 

 hedge is used chiefly on the road-line, and to mark the more important divisions of property. 

 Elsewhere, post and rail fences and palings are frequently found. The hedges that line the 

 roads are generally not more than three feet and a half high, and are not thick, but grow so thin 

 and hungrily that the light shines through them. Near houses, especially in suburban places, 

 brick walls are common ; and I observed in these a fact which seemed significant. In most 

 cases I saw that the walls in such places had been raised by an addition of some three feet. The 

 upper courses of bricks were plainly discernible to be of a make different from that of the 

 original wall, and the joints and the newer mortar could easily be detected. This seemed to 

 show, unmistakably, an increase in the feeling of reserve, and perhaps in the necessity for it. 

 The walls that would sufficiently exclude the public a hundred years and more ago, were found 

 insufficient, and some fifty years ago (for even the top courses were old, and well set, and mossy) 

 the barriers were made higher, high enough to be screens against all passing eyes." 



