320 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



somewhat more than half through, especial care is taken 

 that the cut or incision in the part of the tree which 

 is to be bent down is made very long, so that rain water 

 and other wet may be all the less able to damage it, as 

 well as that it may so much the better be able to be 

 bent ; but the stub which remains down in the ground, 

 one does not trouble himself about how the end of that 

 is cut. And as it is seldom that so many trees grow in 

 the middle of the hedge, that they alone, when they are 

 bent, will be sufficient to fill up the fence with, but 

 there are openings all the same here and there, long sprays 

 and stems, spratar OCh stand, of hawthorn are taken, 

 which are bent or laid in the hedge in the same way as 

 the little ends of the former trees, viz., that they go 

 somewhat in formam serpentinam horizontaliter, or, now on 

 the right hand side of the one staff, and afterwards on 

 the left of the next following, and so by turns always so 

 that the outermost ends are ultimately turned to one 

 and the same side of the hedge, as here, in the example 

 given, to the east. They are especially particular, to 

 in this way wreath or set in hawthorn or sloe down to 

 the ground, to thereby hinder the swine from going 

 through the hedge in their explorations, because both 

 these trees with their long thorns usually deprive them 

 of all pleasure in such a research. [T. I. p. 317. J But 

 that this dead fence may have still more strength, they 

 procure for themselves long sprays either of hazel, 

 willow, blackberry-bushes, or some other tree of which 

 they take two sticks of about the same length, which are 

 twisted, or wreathed spirally about each other on the 

 top of the fence over the others, always so that the ends 

 of the staves, storarna, come to be wreathed in between 

 those two sprays, and thus fastened. They begin with 

 this, thus : — 



The large end of a spray is set on the one side of a staff 



