130 



Hedgerow Timber. 



[JUNE, 



copious directions for the operation. No doubt a certain 

 amount of hedgerow timber was planted, especially in the 

 vicinity of the larger farm-houses or older manor-houses. But 

 so far as the greater bulk of the Ordinary hedgerow timber is 

 concerned, neither records nor traditions exist regarding any 

 such work having been done, although little of it can be more 

 than two hundred years of age at the outside, and the greater 

 proportion of it is not more than one hundred years. 



Going back to the conditions which prevailed when most 

 of the hedgerows of England were formed, however, it is not 

 difficult to furnish an explanation of the presence of a great 

 deal of the hedgerow timber in them. Two hundred years ago 

 much of what is now enclosed ground existed in the form of 

 commons or wastes, many of which contained a great deal of 

 timber, which was claimed by the Lord of the Manor. Such 

 commons, although little adapted for the artificial raising of 

 trees, yet contained many odd corners or patches of gorse, 

 brambles, thorns, &c, which acted as rough nurseries in which 

 seedlings of oak, ash, sycamore, &c, or suckers of elm or poplar 

 were able to reach a size which first rendered them safe against 

 the attacks of cattle, and subsequently brought them to a size 

 at which they could be classified as timber trees. When the 

 constant encroachments upon these wastes were made by the 

 copyholders of the manor such trees would be preserved in a 

 general way, and as these encroachments usually took the form of 

 long narrow strips or patches of ground, not exceeding an acre 

 or so in extent, it is easily seen that a large number of trees must 

 have stood in the line of the rough bank which separated the copy- 

 hold from the waste of the manor, and which thenceforth became 

 hedgerow trees. In some cases, perhaps, trees may have been 

 planted or specially retained as boundary marks, and as such 

 were regarded as permanent landmarks. 



Hedgerow timber once established in the above manner, its 

 perpetuation would be a simple matter, bearing in mind the 

 particular form in which hedges existed until quite recent 

 times, and in which many of them exist now. The close, neatly- 

 trimmed thorn or beech hedge is a very different thing to the 

 old-fashioned bank and ditch, surmounted by a row of dead 

 branches, thorns, or bushes, out of which was gradually evolved 



