OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 47 



or with malice prepense to fox-hunting, some 

 one had dried, or rather baked, the wliole of the 

 seed in an oven, previous to its having been com- 

 mitted to the ground. 



It should invariably be remembered, that for 

 months after the first tender shoots of the gorse 

 have made their appearance above ground, you 

 must employ hands to weed it as attentively as 

 if the whole were a garden bed containing so 

 many choice flowers, the hopes of the Florist ; 

 for I am clearly of opinion, it is the neglect of 

 early weeding which ruins more than one half 

 of the gorses that are made. There is, I am 

 told, a new method of making a covert sufficiently 

 thick to ensure its holding foxes, or as the term is, 

 to be full of " good lyeing," in an almost incred- 

 ible short time after it has been made. This 

 mode, I must confess, appears to me venj novel, 

 and I cannot be answerable for its success, but 

 here you have it as it was given to me. Fence 

 out a certain quantity of land (waste, of course, 

 if possible,) and merely stick up a number of 

 faggots endways, at certain distances from each 

 other, perhaps a couple of yards apart, taking 

 care that the points are stuck deep enough 

 into the ground to prevent all danger of the 

 wind blowing them down. In the course of a 

 very few months, or a single summer, the rank 



