Ditches, Lanes, Copses, and Hedgerows 55 



our country the system of keeping stock in the open 

 air, instead of in sheds, makes a fence a necessity as 

 all know to their cost, who have to look after a country 

 place or farm of any size. But we live in mechanical 

 days, when many think that among the blessings 

 and fine discoveries of the age is that of making 

 a gridiron fence ! and so we see some of the fairest 

 landscapes disfigured by a network of iron fencing. 

 'And when a man throws away beautiful living fences 

 and gives us miles of ugly iron in the foreground of 

 a fair landscape, I think of the Devil setting up as 

 an economist. Artistic, too, no doubt some of these 

 "improvers think themselves ! 



Iron Fences and our Landscapes. 



The iron fence bids fair to ruin the beauty of the 

 English landscape, unless men see its ugliness and 

 its drawbacks as a fence, its great cost, and the further 

 cost of tinkering and daubing it with tar or paint. With 

 bullocks on one or both sides of an iron fence, its 

 fragility as a fence is soon seen. It is no use as 

 a shelter, nor as a protection, as it only forms a ladder 

 for all who want to get over with ease. As a boundary 

 fence it means the loss of all privacy. Estates of much 

 natural beauty have their charms stolen away by iron 

 fences. Used to fence the pleasure ground or by 

 drives, the effect is bad to any one who knows how 

 much more beautiful live fences are. There is nothing 

 an iron fence does that an ' old-fashioned ' one will not 



