228 
On Fences. 
abundance of light and air will reap their reward in more bountiful 
crops. 
I shall be here allowed, I trust, to urge upon landed proprietors, 
and planters in general, the necessity of growing for themselves 
larch and Scotch pine trees wherever they have a waste piece of 
groiuid. The crreat want of wood for fencint; vouncr hedges is the 
chief cause of our fields beins intersected with those clumsy mili- 
tary-like fortifications which absorb so much of the best land in 
England. From the days of Johnson to the present time, it has 
been the reproach of Scotland that it is without timber-trees : this 
is so far correct, yet it is equally true that the Scotch people have 
planted trees to supply their more urgent wants, whilst England, 
though reposing all over under a broad umbrageous canopy, is not 
in reality in possession of the timber slie is most in want of. If 
even an outhouse has to be built, the poor cannot do it, for deal 
wood is either not to be had or it is held at such a high price thai 
they are unable to purchase it. If a young hedge has to be fenced, 
the same reasons inteqiose to prevent its being done, and hence the 
rude banks which are thrown up to divide fields between man and 
man. It is not to be expected that in this essay the details of 
planting the trees should be entered upon ; but it may be men- 
tioned that, in order to be serviceable for the purpose alluded to, 
they should stand very close to each othei", so that they may be 
drawn up to a considerable length without great thickness. The 
larch and Scotch pine will grow on any sort of land, not absolutely 
saturated with moisture, and in any situation except close to the 
sea. For these trees no land is too poor, for even in beds of gravel 
they will reach a timber-like size in the course of fifteen years. 
The old Scotch pine, or Highland pine, as it is called (Pinus syl- 
vestris horizontalis) should be preferred to the common tree (^Finux 
sylvestris), the wood of the latter being soft and porous, whilst 
that of the other, to use' the words of Loudon, " remains fresh, em- 
balmed in its own turpentine." 
In reconstructing the fences throughout England, the advantage 
of retaining some of those at present in use as a protection to those 
founded upon a better plan, is too obvious to require being en- 
forced ; and the only precaution which it seems necessary to allude 
to, is, that the new hedges should not be planted so near to the 
others as to be injured by the shade of their overhanging branches. 
Norwich. 
