482 
Essay upon Fences. 
advert to the crcneral question, how far all fences between arable 
fields should be destroyed. My own feeling is in accordance 
with that which Mr. Pusey, in a number of this Journal, has 
mentioned that his tenants have remarked to him, namely, "that 
they do not require more than one arable field on a farm." I 
would, of course, restrict this opinion to land lying tolerably com- 
pact and square, of an even character. The reasons which have led 
me to this conclusion are the following : 1st. The very considerable 
amount of cultivated land which woiild be added to a farm by de- 
stroying the hedges. I feel confident that in the average of farms 
in this district, 1 acre in 10 would be added to the cultivated 
land by the entire extinction of fences. The second reason, and 
many tenant-farmers would say the first, is, that any covert for 
game in the shape of hedge-rows would be totally destroyed ; 
but this being rather irrelevant to the reasons the Society have 
put forth, I will not further allude to this point. The third 
reason is, that the farmer would be enabled to divide his land 
into distinct pieces of a similar size, for the purpose of a system- 
atic rotation of crops. We will suppose a farm of 400 acres of 
arable land, cultivated upon the Norfolk or four-course system of 
husbandry, and here the advantages of having four 100-acre pieces 
of wheat, turnips, barley, and clover, will be clearly apparent. 
Tn feeding off the green crops with sheep, folding might be regu- 
larly continued throughout that separate crop, until it were con- 
cluded ; there would be no driving of sheep from field to field, 
or carriage of hurdles and crops, and other inconveniences, which, 
though small individually, yet form in the whole a considerable 
amount of labour. Again, the time which would be saved in 
ploughing, &c., and the benefits which would result from being 
enabled to dispense with the many headlands which take away 
so much from small fields, are very considerable items in the 
amount of saving which would be effected. Again, in sowing, 
reaping, harrowing, and rolling of corn, and in the carting of 
corn, hay, and manure, there would be great and tangible benefits 
resulting from being enabled to pursue each of these branches 
of agricultural operations, and keeping steaddy working at theip, 
upon the same tract of land, until the whole of that branch were 
completed. I am aware, that with the large farmers on the Bor- 
der, in Northumberland, Roxburghshire, and Berwickshire, I 
should find many opponents to this system ; they, being in the 
habit of pasturing their sheep and beasts together in the same 
fields, and never, except in the feeding off turnips, resorting to 
the practice of folding their sheep, would declare the plan to be 
unwise and inexpedient. But without discussing the question 
how far their plan is the preferable one (I am strongly of opi- 
nion it is not so), I am convinced that the plan of no fences 
