AGRICULTURE. 



.connected with the system of draining by 

 a ditch on each side, about three feet wide 

 at top and four deep. The bank or 

 border should be about the width of six 

 feet at the bottom, lessening- gradually to 

 three at the top, at which the height from 

 the ground should be five or six feet. On 

 each side of the bank should be planted a 

 single row of quick thorn. If the thorn 

 be of the bullace or damson kind, it will 

 be productive and profitable. On the top 

 of the border filbert nuts may be planted 

 at the distance of three feet ; and, in the 

 middle, apple trees at the distance of 

 five feet. This fence would occupy about 

 13 feet, and in the neighbourhood of Lon- 

 don, particularly, would be found not only 

 effectual for its main purpose, but a source 

 of income as well as the means of defence. 

 The hawthorn, the black thorn, and the 

 holly, the willow, the black alder, and the 

 birch, have all been recommended by ob- 

 servant and experienced men, as admira- 

 bly calculated to secure fields from the 

 irruptions of cattle, and will be employed 

 for the purpose, according as particular 

 circumstances of dryness or moisture, or 

 other considerations recommend their ap- 

 plication. Where there is an abundance 

 of flat stones, fences are frequently com- 

 posed of them; and, though not so agree- 

 able to the eye as theothers, and requiring 

 frequent repair from the stones being dis- 

 placed by cattle, when kept in order they 

 are the most effectual defence that can 

 be procured. With respect to hedges, 

 (which in this country are more usual as 

 well as more pleasing than walls, and 

 which, perhaps, cannot in general be 

 formed of any thing preferable to the 

 thorn, considering the quickness of its 

 growth in congenial soil, in which it shoots 

 six or seven feet in a single season, and 

 that it is more disposed to lateral shoots 

 than all other trees, and by its prickles 

 is especially calculated for the object 

 in view, in the construction of hedges,) 

 the proper method of repairing them is 

 unquestionably by plashing. This has 

 been defined a wattling made of living 

 wood. The old wood must, in the first 

 instance, be all cleared from the hedge, 

 together with brambles and irregularly 

 growing stuff", and along the top of the 

 bank should be left standing the straight- 

 est and best grown stems of thorn, hazel, 

 elm, oak, or ash, about the number of six 

 in a yard. The next step is to repair the 

 ditch, which, in the driest soils, should 

 never be less than three feet wide at top, 

 by two and a half deep, and six inches 

 wide at bottom; and in all very moist 

 VOL. I. 



ones should be at least four feet by three 

 and one at bottom. The earth removed 

 from the ditch should be thrown upon the 

 bank, after which the repair of the hedge 

 commences, and those of the stems above 

 mentioned, left in cutting the old hedge, 

 which grow in the direction in which the 

 new hedge is to run, are cut off 1 , to serve 

 as hedge stakes for it. which being chosen, 

 as much as possible of sallow and willow 

 readily grow, and effectually preserve the 

 new part from falling or leaning. The 

 remainder of the wood left standing is 

 then plashed down. One stroke is given 

 to the stick near the ground, and another 

 about ten or twelve inches higher, just 

 deep enough to slit out a part of the wood 

 between the two. leaving the stem sup- 

 ported by about a quarter of its original 

 size ; it is then laid along the top of the 

 bank, and weaved among the hedge- 

 stakes Dead thorns are sometimes 

 woven among them, where there happens 

 to be a scarcity of living wood. After 

 this operation the hedge is eddered in the 

 usual manner. The greatest part of the 

 hedge thus consists of living materials, 

 and the importance of this circumstance 

 cannot be too strongly insisted upon, as a 

 compact and lasting fence is thus formed, 

 while those hedges which are constructed 

 of dead materials speedily decay, and 

 crumble into the ditch. It would be end- 

 less to detail all the varieties of fence which 

 peculiar circumstances may have render^ 

 ed expedient, or human ingenuity may 

 have invented. The most usual and most 

 generally applicable are those which have 

 been mentioned. 



Imgation. 



Watering of meadows was used in Eng- 

 land even in the days of Queen Elizabeth, 

 and was carried on upon a large scale by 

 Rowland Vaughan, in the golden valley of 

 Herefordshire. He likewise published 

 a treatise on the subject. After this pe- 

 riod, and about a century since, it was 

 introduced by Mr. Welladvise into Glou- 

 cestershire, with abundant proofs of its 

 efficacy and importance. So slow, how- 

 ever, is the progress of improvement, that 

 it is only of late years that this over- 

 flowing of grounds, in nearly all other 

 situations as well as in level ones, has 

 been brought considerably into use. It 

 is a practice by which, in mild seasons, 

 grass is produced in extreme abundance, 

 even so early as in March ; grass, too, 

 particularly nutritious as well as plen- 

 tiful, on which cattle which have win- 



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