Gorse. 
385 
brown, dry, and withered, as two-year old gorse will when the 
crop is thick and close upon the ground. 
Various kinds of dressings have, from time to time, been sug- 
gested as proper and necessary for the sustentation of the plant. 
Sand, lime, coal-ashes, cinders, &c., have each of them had their 
strenuous advocates and partisans. Experience has fully proved, 
that heavy crops may be had from the same land, for any number 
of years in succession, without any manure whatever. But for this 
purpose the land must be kept sufficiently free from water, care 
must be taken that the seedlings are not smothered by couch-grass 
before the plants have become strong and vigorous, and the young 
shoots must not be exposed to the browsing of cattle or sheep. 
The injury done to gorse by cattle, sheep, horses, and asses, is 
not confined to the mere browsing. By nibbling and jagging the 
young shoots, they check the growth of the plant ; and this, con- 
jointly with the tracks which they form in walking about, gives to 
the couch-grass the advantages of a start, which it could not have 
had if the growth of the gorse-shoots had not been checked, and if 
no tracks had been made. 
In many parts of the country gorse is cultivated on the sides of 
turf fences, and at the foot of stone walls, as well with a view to 
protect and to strengthen the fences as for the feeding of cattle. 
In some places the enclosures are made and the land is divided 
by fences made partly of stones, and partly of sods, the middle of 
the fence being filled up with earth. In other places the sides of 
the fences are entirely composed of turfs or sods, and the middle 
is filled with earth. In both cases, the turfs or sods, and the earth 
•to fill up, are taken out of a ditch made for the purpose on both 
sides of the fence. A section of one of these fences would pre- 
sent something like the following appearance : — 
When these mounds or fences have been made, the gorse-seed 
is sown in drills, lengthways, on their tops, generally in two rows ; 
and on both their sides in two drills, made with the corner of a 
spade or with some other suitable instrument ; one a few inches 
from the ground, and the other about midway between that and 
the top. 
The crops produced by pursuing this course are almost always 
heavy and luxuriant. 
