480 
Essay upon Fences. 
in Mid-Kent (where the plan of quickset hedges is carried out in 
a most excellent manner) the land cultivated completely up to 
the stem of the hedge, and no more soil taken from the operation 
of the plough than is barely sufficient for the hedge to stand 
upon. Again : when such a hedge is once raised, there is no re- 
making required, and these fences are not so liable to have gaps 
made in them as others, both from the thorny nature of the 
materials of which they are constructed and the height at which 
they are kept. They are also calculated in an eminent degree, 
by reason of their total freedom from any description of timber, 
to give the adjoining land the benefits of a free circulation of sun 
and air. 
But there are situations or circumstances in which it may not 
be easy to raise quickset fences, and where there are at present 
hedges existing between arable fields, composed of hazel, and 
white and black thorn, and other brushwood, very frequently of 
considerable breadth — from 10 to 20 feet — taking away a great 
portion of valuable soil, and growing nothing but rubbishy and 
worse than useless underwood, affording a covert for game, and 
raising an amount of hedgerow-timber which proves in the highest 
degree injurious to the adjoining fields. 
Having dealt with similar cases to the above from personal 
experience, and with very considerable success, I may perhaps be 
permitted to detail the plans which were there carried out, and 
the results which have followed from their adoption. 
The principal portion of the timber having been cut down by 
the landlord, the underwood was cut, and the roots grubbed com- 
pletely up to the stem of the outside hedge (I use the word hedf/e 
in its strictly legitimate sense), which was divided by a small 
. ditch, or watercourse, from the adjoining fields. The live stuff 
of the hedge was then thickly plashed down together, and suffered 
to remain without cutting for the first year or two, and since that 
time has been regularly brushed every year in July or August, 
and they are now for the most part good live hedges, foi-m a 
sufficient fence between the fields, and possess all the advantages 
which I have before attributed to quickset, though of course^ in 
a lesser degree. I have also kept a hedge (which was of a thorny 
kind) made in the ordinary manner practised in the south of 
England, with stakes and binders cut in the above method, and 
the result has been equally satisfactory. I do not consider it 
advisable to let such hedges as I recommend reach a greater 
height than 3 feet 6 inches. In one of the instances narrated 
above, in a field of 14 acres, the side fences of which were treated 
as I have described, more than half an acre of ground has been 
reclaimed, and in every case the fresh soil acquired has been con- 
siderable, and, together with the roots of the underwood, has 
