405 
Diminution  of  four-footed  Game. 
in  summer.  Their  attention  I must  especially  call  to  a passage 
in  the  report  upon  Gloucestershire  :* — 
“ On  one  farm  the  flock  of  Cotswold  sheep  used  to  be  managed,  running 
at  large  in  separate  fields,  feeding  on  the  young  and  old  seeds.  The 
number  of  ewes  kept  for  many  years  varied  from  100  to  110.  The  present 
occupier,  seven  years  since,  noticed  the  folding-off  system  practised  in 
Wiltshire  through  the  summer  on  vetches,  clover,  &c.,  and  tried  it  a little 
at  first,  increasing  as  he  felt  the  benefits.  His  stock  is  now  150  ewes  of 
the  same  breed,  and  the  increase  is  owing  wholly  to  the  folding-off  system.” 
What  would  be  said  if  'a  manufacturer  produced  100  pieces 
only  of  cloth  while  his  neighbour  turned  out  half  as  many  more 
from  the  same  weight  of  cotton  ? Yet  so  it  seems  to  stand  with  our 
flock  masters  through  a wide  breadth  of  England.  Here  is  no 
outlay  of  capital  wanted  ; no  newfangled  method, — nothing  but  a 
crowbar  and  a few  hurdles.  Our  own  practice,  if  recorded,  I always 
believed,  and  still  believe,  can  do  more  for  us  than  even  the  disco- 
veries of  science.  To  return  to  hedgerows, — the  expense  of  their 
removal  has  never  cost  me  anything.  The  tenants  have  done  it, 
and  the  fuel  has  paid  the  labour:  the  job  of  removing  a hedge 
has  even  been  sold  to  a labourer.  But  this  will  be  otherwise 
where  wood  is  plentiful  or  coals  are  cheap.  The  trees  removed 
ought  to  help  for  other  improvements.  Unfortunately,  the  time 
has  gone  by  for  selling  them,  and  as  every  one  is  now  aware 
that  they  should  be  cut  down,  timber  in  many  neighbourhoods  is 
become  a mere  drug.  At  any  rate,  however,  they  will  more  than 
pay  for  the  removal  of  fences,  so  that  here  must  be  one  cheap 
remedy  for  country  gentlemen.  There  is  another  remedy,  per- 
fectly costless,  on  which,  as  it  belongs  though  not  to  the  science, 
yet  certainly  to  the  practice  of  farming,  I cannot  but  say  a few 
words : — 
§ 3.  The  Diminution  of  four  footed  Game. 
The  rabbit  is  now  admitted  to  be  indefensible.  He  will  clear  by 
the  covert  side  three  or  four  acres  of  barley,  which  never  comes 
into  straw.  He  is  self-convicted.  But  the  hare  will  travel  two  miles 
out  by  night  for  his  supper ; and  yet,  though  less  palpable,  the 
hare’s  bite  is  not  the  less  mischievous.  Even  he  will  often  feed 
down  in  winter  or  spring  twenty  acres  of  wheat,  which  comes 
to  a crop  indeed,  but  is  apt  to  mildew,  and  is  perhaps  worse  by  a 
quarter  the  acre.  Swedes,  too,  are  gnawed  and  exposed  to  frost, 
so  that  farmers  sometimes  store  their  swedes  for  protection,  not 
against  the  weather,  but  the  nightly  visitor.  I have  known  farmers 
give  up  the  growth  of  winter  vetches  altogether  where  hares  have 
been  swarming.  The  amount  of  loss  may  be  measured  in  this 
case  by  the  fact  of  a farmer’s  having  been  obliged,  as  I know,  to 
send  his  flock  twenty  miles  off  in  spring  to  water-meadows,  for 
* Bravender’s  Report  on  Gloucestershire,  Journal,  xi.  173. 
