174 flop Shelters or •' Leivs." 



and 900 feet above sea level. It is very narrow tovifards the upper end 

 — about 40 yards wide — and, seen at a distance, resembles bare poles 

 against the sky line, with a faint streak of green at the head of them. 

 Yet these poles, so the shepherd reports, distinctly diminish the 

 violence of the wind. At Cliftonon-Bowmont, at an elevation of 

 about 600 feet, I have been surprised to find the sheltering effect of 

 firs, and other trees, in a plantation about 30 yards wide, and which 

 is merely a collection of tall poles with some branches at the top o 

 each tree. 



With the aid of the new grass and deep-rooting plant mixtures 

 I have suggested, stock can be kept in the fields much later than they 

 can be at present, and as the old forms of shelter (ditches and banks, 

 with trees on the top, and hedges, all affording much shelter) have to 

 a large extent been removed, or allowed to decline, fresh forms of 

 shelter are most urgently required. So strongly, indeed, is the desire 

 for shelter that on this property, a great many years ago, a tenant 

 agreed to pay, and did pay, my predecessor the interest on the cost 

 of making four blocks of plantation for the centres of as many exposed 

 fields. Plantations, too, are the more urgently needed for protecting 

 the game, and especially the nests, which were formerly well pro- 

 tected by the hedgerows and banks. Each plantation should have a 

 grass margin within the fence of about 15 to 20 feet, and this should 

 be planted with occasional bushes, and sown with seeds of the tall 

 grasses, so that birds could be provided with comparatively safe 

 nesting quarters. At present it is customary to plant close up to the 

 boundary fences, and when the trees grow up the plantation is then 

 of little or no use for nesting purposes. I now proceed to give the 

 remarks that have been sent to me from Kent. 



HOP SHELTERS OR " LEWS " IN EAST KENT. 



These are now generally made by planting the Black Italian 

 poplar in rows along the outside of the gardens, |jrincii)ally on the 

 W., S., and S.W. sides, about three feet apart, and brushing up 

 both sides of the row close in every year, in the winter and spring. 

 These plants are easily raised by putting the shoots that are cut 

 off in the ground ; they grow very fast, and are allowed to get up 

 about 18 or 20 feet. A row of Austrian pines planted not too close 

 together, and a row of poplars a little way oil, make a splendid 

 "lew," but takes up a good bit of ground. 



How far these "lews" will act depends on the conformation of 

 the ground. If it slopes up away from the trees, of course they 

 will not shelter the crop so far away as they would if the ground 

 sloped down away from the trees, or even if it were level. On 

 quite level ground, I should say they would be useful for 100 

 yards. Of late years a very coarse kind of cloth has been made, 

 and sold cheaply, of cocoanut fibre ; this is fastened to stout poles 



