198 
On Fences. 
light and air the crop is exposed to ; so that whatever interrupts these 
agents must of course be hurtful. It must also be borne in mind 
that the number of fences seriously alFects the amount of labour on 
a farm. The most obvious evil is the frequent turnings they occa- 
sion to the ploughman, and the time expended in cultivating the 
land, difficult of access, in their immediate neighbourhood. As a 
matter of course, it follows that to every enclosure there must be 
an entrance, and at most of the entrances a gate, an item of ex- 
pense which when taken separately appears to be but trifling, but 
which in the aggregate amounts to a considerable sum ; for all 
those gates have to be repaired and ultimately replaced. Another 
evil consequent upon the number of hedges is an additional num- 
ber of roads leading from one field to another ; but the crowning 
evil, as set forth in the following section, is the site the fences 
themselves occupy in conjunction with the trees which they contain. 
6. The fences throughout England are injurious on account oj 
their containing timber-trees. — In my estimation this is the greatest 
of all the evils applicable to the hedge-fences of England. As is 
shown elsewhere (46) it is impossible to have a complete fence so 
long as timber-trees are allowed to rise in the hedge line ; and 
even admitting that a fence containing them could be kept up so 
as to be serviceable in certain situations, the shade and drip of 
their branches, and the nourishment they absorb from the land on 
either side, are sufficient reasons for excluding them throughout 
every well-regulated farm. The most common tree found in 
hedgerows throughout England is the oak ; next is the English 
elm and the ash. After these follow the sycamore, the lime, the 
beech, the poplar, the willow, and the alder. The oak is naturally 
a wide spreader, and, so long as it is in leaf, a dense-headed tree. 
In hedge-rows, however, it is in some districts severely pruned ; 
but notwithstanding this it is found upon a fair average to over- 
shadow a space of thirty feet in diameter. From this has to be 
deducted a certain proportion for such spaces as it shades where no 
crops are, such as roads, where its hurtful effects are merely con- 
fined to the unwholesome stagnation of air it creates, and th^ mil- 
dewing influences which inevitably follow. The English elm is 
naturally a more erect grower, with a less excursive head, and 
bearing pruning better than any other timber-tree in Britain. The 
specimens throughout Middlesex, which are in many cases pruned 
close from the bottom to the topmost twig, prove this position. 
The average spread of the branches of the elm is only twenty-three 
feet in diameter ; but as its roots run along the surface of the sol 
to a great extent, and send up numerous suckers, the farmer con- 
siders it a more determined enemy to him than the oak. The ash, 
again, is the worst of all trees for crops in its vicinity: its presence 
is felt throughout a wide circle around it ; and it is maintained by 
