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On Fences. 
XX. — On Fences. By James Grigor. 
Prize Essay. 
In a country like Britain, so celebrated for its advanced position 
in agriculture, it appears almost anomalous that it should have so 
long retained s\ich an evil as its overgrown and cumbrous hedges. 
It will at any rate be admitted that no part of our rural economy 
is so susceptible of improvement as the fences of England, and I 
am persuaded that in no department are the exertions of the 
Society now leading on tlie improvements in agriculture likely to 
be of greater use than in their re-construction. Though chiefly 
connected with them, the subject of this essay by no means refers in 
all its important bearings to the purely rural districts of our country; 
for I believe that the generality of fences are as uncouth and 
cumbrous in thickly peopled districts as elsewhere. Let any one 
take a ride about the outskirts of London, the seat of so much 
wealth and refinement, and he will presently observe fences on the 
road-side half dead, half alive, patched in many places with 
brushwood, full of weeds and rubbish, and resting upon a founda- 
tion at least four times wider than a rightly constructed fence re- 
quires. Around provincial towns it is the same. Close to the 
immediate outlets, wherein general the finest buildings are erected, 
stands many an old irregular fence full of nettles, docks, and other 
herbage, presenting anything but an appearance in keeping with 
the trimly kept grounds of a suburban villa. I can fancy nothing 
which would form such an improvement in the vicinities of our 
towns as the substitution of neat, well-kept fences for those in 
present use. Our roads are, in general, well kept ; and if they 
were bounded by fences at all in character with them, the suburbs 
of our cities and towns would assume something of the air and 
neatness observable in a pleasure-ground. More of a garden- 
like character would be diffused, and though the appearance thus 
introduced would be perhaps less ])icturesque, it would at any rate 
bespeak a more refined and careful taste. » 
Perhaps some prejudice exists in favour of fences as at present 
constituted, and that there really are many traits of beauty obser- 
vable in the varied outline they present; filled as they are with 
many of the sweetest flowers and shrubs that we have. But the 
same remark is applicable to idl districts in a state of nature, 
and forms no reason why a thorough change should not be ef- 
fected upon them. Lovers there are of the interminable wastes 
of purple heath, which yield nothing whatever to the community, 
and are enjoyed only by a few as a scene of solitary beauty once 
in a season. To uphold such scenes, as well as our picturesque 
hedge sides, seems to be the work only of poets j whilst a growing 
