THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 20, 1858. 
Ventilation is easily provided for in the hive, by putting it 
on a framed board, with a passage on both sides, guarded on 
the furthest side by a piece of perforated zinc, and a slide.— 
Tyko. 
[Thanhs for these explanations. Please to repeat your 
query about climbers, on a paper not giving statements about 
bees. They go to different authorities.—E d.] 
ON GAME PRESERVES AND FENCES. 
By Mr. A. Fohsyth. 
The Princes of Germany, with a princely and father-like 
care for the poor, caused the sides of the highways to be planted 
with fruit trees, not only to increase the value of the property, 
but also to afford shade to the traveller, and refreshment on 
the way. Mr. Loudon mentions some such avenues that he 
passed through sixty miles in length, and loaded with fruit. 
Surely such avenues of fruit trees are worthy of our imitation. 
I would not dwell upon this subject so much, were it not for 
this reason,—that the farm is head-quarters for game; and I 
regret to see the farmer plodding continually with the herba¬ 
ceous annual, as if, forsooth, no other plant would pay; 
whereas the Willow twig and the Gorse twig are more sub¬ 
stantial and more wholesome fodder than half the herbage 
usually collected and dried as hay; and, moreover, it is im¬ 
possible to carry the culture of herbaceous crops to the greatest 
perfection without the shelter which ligneous plants alone can 
accomplish. 
It is really astonishing to find, that of all the valuable shrubs 
and trees that will bear the open air in England, I cannot call 
to mind more than one that I have ever seen cultivated by the 
farmer for its spray, and that one is the Gorse. Upon the pre¬ 
sent occasion, I must confine myself to naming the Willow and 
the Mountain Ash as two more of the greatest importance to 
the agriculturist and the game preserves. The land that 
will only yield rushes and dirty unhealthy herbage, from being 
occasionally inundated with muddy water, will yield Osier 
twigs, a clean standing healthy crop three feet high, with rich 
juice and a great weight of crop. Loudon mentions, on the 
authority of Bose, a French botanist, that horses fed on Willow 
shoots will travel twenty leagues a day. 
And, in regard to the Mountain Ash, its name implies it to 
be a tenant of the stormy region; it is a plant of rapid growth, 
thriving in a ridge of poor soil, where few plants could live. 
Its plants are cheap in the nurseries, and it bears transplanting 
with less loss than most trees. It is readily obtained, and at 
a very cheap rate, by sowing on the mountains the ripe berries, 
bearing in mind that they lie a whole year in the ground 
before they vegetate. As this tree fruits freely, and birds 
greedily cat the fruit, it is very strange that we do not find it 
turned to profitable account. From my own experience I 
have found one valuable use of this fruit. A quantity of the 
berries were gathered in bunches, and built into a stack of 
Barley, in harvest-time; and, in the following spring, the 
stack being taken down to be thrashed, the berries were found 
to have lost much of their acidity, and were not unpleasant 
to the taste, and were greedily eaten by poultry and various 
domestic animals. In times of scarcity these berries have been 
kiln-dried and ground as food for man, thereby showing that 
they might safely be used at any time in this dried state for 
pigs and poultry. I am the more anxious to get this tree 
introduced into our domestic economy, on account of the 
berries being of such importance to iced birds and game, and 
thereby save corn, and preserve the character of these creatures 
from being branded as thieves. 
B at, besides fencing, I have two other equally important 
functions for it to perform, namely, to shelter the enclosed and 
the adjoining crop, and to produce either fine fruit, from which 
the farmer shall obtain a regular vintage gathering, or good 
fodder for cattle. The Gooseberry, Currant, and Raspberry, 
may be given as examples of the sorts of native fruits that I 
propose to cultivate ; and I would fain bring into notice the 
valuable but neglected Bramble, as worthy of the greatest 
consideration for the making of wine : it holds up its clusters 
to our view year after year, as the Vine of our own country, 
and tears us with its spines, as if to remind us of the uncle- 
239 
served neglect of its merits. I have tasted Blackberries here, 
on a south bank, hanging over tho Churnet, that were equal 
to the much-esteemed Mulberry, which they very much re¬ 
sembled, and when bruised gave a juice that only required 
preserving to yield good w r ine. The plant, moreover, has 
length of stem and strength of spine, to make hedges and en¬ 
tanglements to any degree of prickly closeness that may be 
desired. Even the common Barberry is infinitely superior to 
the Thorn as a hedge-plant, growing, as it does, to a moderate 
height, and very compact and spiny, and yielding plenty of 
fruit, that can, with care and skill, be made available in 
domestic economy. Berberis aquifolium, as has been already 
observed, is everything that could be desired, being evergreen, 
and of a dwarf, close habit of growth, equal to the Holly in 
prickly foliage, and superior to the Holly in yielding large and 
abundant blossoms, succeeded by valuable fruits. As proofs 
of this latter statement, I may mention the fact, that Lord 
Vernon planted thousands of these at Sudbury Hall, in Derby¬ 
shire ; and, under the able management of Mr. Mitchell, these 
grew beautifully, and fruited to such an extent that the fruit 
was gathered in basketsful to feed poultry. But this plant, 
owing to its expense, could not at this time be introduced 
into ordinary samples of farming ; but is admirably suited for 
the ferme ornee , for which, this part of my article is principally 
intended. 
Game are uncommonly fond of the bark of trees, and the 
leaves and seeds of grasses. Rabbits kept in a paved yard 
will grow fat with Willow and Fir branches, and, owing to the 
particular form of the mouth of the rabbit and the hare, they 
can bark trees more readily when the stick lies horizontally; 
and this is important in game preserving and in tree preserv¬ 
ing to be understood, since a cartload of Willow, or other 
branches, strewn about the haunts of hares and rabbits, feeds 
them with that article, and saves standing timber; and they 
will never twist their necks to eat the upright bark if they can 
get it straightforward and lying flat. The Willow tree is 
suitable to any farm, and to any farmer; even the tenant-at- 
will may reap a return from a plantation of Willows the first 
year, for he will only have to plant the truncheons a little 
thicker in the rows than the leasehold tenant does, to realise 
a thick-standing crop of Willow herbage, which he can either 
use green or dried, as any other herbage or hay is dried; and 
as for hedgerows, few plants can equal the Willow, for it will 
send up shoots from the stock six feet high in one season, and 
after the second year a fox-hunter could not cross the hedge 
of tall stakes; and I need scarcely add, that the overgrown 
Willows will yield two most important articles, namely, fuel 
and charcoal, the latter article being equally valuable to agri¬ 
culture as to horticulture. The value of Gorse is already well 
knowm to agriculturists, therefore I will pass that over, merely 
remarking that the spines of the Gorse bush (and be it borne 
in mind that its leaves are all spines) and the wood of the 
current year are the eatable parts of that valuable fodder plant. 
Here, then, we have the farmer feeding his stock with the 
leaves and sticks. Again, we have the farmer feeding his 
stock with the leaves and stems of dried grasses and other 
plants, under the name of hay. Now, upon what principle 
can it be objected to, to feed stock upon that far more sub¬ 
stantial and nourishing article, the leaves of trees ? 
The culture of trees and shrubs is altogether a higher order 
of tillage than the growing of annual crops, such as corn or 
Turnips; any cottager, even the mere clown, selfish and un¬ 
educated, will plant a Potato garden, when he may reap the 
fruits in three or four months ; but it requires intellect of a 
superior order to plant a vineyard, where a man has to “ cast 
his bread upon the waters,” and wait so many days,-—nay 
years,—for a return. Gardens and farms are made of the 
same earth, and, if a fruitful vineyard has boen counted so 
great and so good an article as to be coveted and longed for 
by the wisest kings, surely a farm a hundred times more ex¬ 
tensive would become an exceedingly interesting and desirable 
affair, if it were cultivated according to the present advanced 
state of British horticulture. I cannot help mentioning two 
notable examples of fruit-growing, to show what really can 
be done by first-rate gardeners, in the open air, with a little 
British earth. Mr. Plimley showed me the Black Esjperione 
Grape, perfectly ripe, against a wall, in the plain earth of the 
forcing-garden at Kensington; and Lord Blau tyre’s gardener 
has ripened Black Hamburgh Grapes against a flued wall, 
