ON HEDGE-ROW TIMBER.
Of the many sources of mischief to which the farmer may be liable, we
can conceive none greater than that of being overgrown with hedge-row
timber. It is scarcely, if at all, second to that of being overstocked
with game—for as regards game, there is a chance of getting some
compensation for palpable injury; but the mischief which trees silently
but surely effect, when surrounding fields, is never allowed for, as it
is not fully appreciated by the tenant, and never admitted by the
landlord; and so as hedge-row timber is usually thicker in the richer
parts of the country, it is somehow considered as an evidence of
fertility on the one hand, while it is looked upon as a legitimate mode
of increasing income on the other.
But we are quite sure that hedge-row timber is almost useless in itself,
and a pest to all who must live under it. Hedges themselves are usually
too many, and these too thick through them; and when it comes to be
understood that the enclosures are smaller, the hedges often greater,
and hedge-row timber thicker on good than on bad lands, some idea may be
formed of the mischief which is inflicted by thus hemming in fine land
from light and air.
The following tables, by Mr. J. Bravender, land-surveyor, of
Cirencester, are the results of an “examination of the fields contained
in 120 parishes:”—
TABLE OF ADMEASUREMENT OF FENCES.
+---------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+---------+--------+
| |Average | | Length | |Quantity |Quantity|
|Geological |quantity| Length | of | Width |occupied | per |
|Formation, &c. | of | of |fencing, | of |by fences|hundred |
| | each |fencing.|per acre.|fencing.|per acre.| acres. |
| | field. | | | | [24] | |
+---------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+---------+--------+
| | Acres. | Chains.| Chains. | Links. |Perches. | Acres. |
| 1. Red Sand- | 5½ | 15·58 | 2·83 | 15 | 9·05 | 5? |
| stone | | | | | | |
| 2. Lias | 4 | 12·90 | 3·22 | 18 | 12·36 | 7¾ |
| 3. Oolite | 11 | 20·75 | 1·88 | 12 | 4·81 | 3 |
| 4. Oxford Clay| 6½ | 16·45 | 2·53 | 16 | 8·63 | 5? |
| 5. Coralline | 11 | 20·75 | 1·88 | 14 | 5·61 | 3½ |
| Oolite | | | | | | |
| 6. Kimmeridge | 8 | 18·25 | 2·28 | 16½ | 8·65 | 5 |
| Clay | | | | | | |
| 7. Chalk | 13 | 23·27 | 1·79 | 12 | 4·58 | 2? |
| | | |
| The average of the above quantity occupied by | | |
| fences is | .. | 4¾ |
| | | |
| A wall, 2 ft. wide, with 1 ft. 3 in. on each side,}| | |
| between arable fields (oolite) }| 2·80 | 1¾ |
| | | |
| A wall, 2 ft. wide, between pasture fields (oolite)| 1·20 | 0¾ |
+----------------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
[24] Including one-third added for angular sinuosities.
The above calculations do not include the strips which are so often
found alongside fences, covered by brambles, blackthorns, and other
rubbish. Now we have seen what is the quantity of land occupied by
fences, it will be our province to ascertain to what extent they may be
reduced in size, and yet remain as useful to the agriculturist.
The following table will exhibit the saving per hundred acres, by
reducing the width of fences:—
TABLE OF REDUCTION OF FENCES.
+--------------------+---------+--------+------+-------+--------+------+
| | Width, |Width to| | Length| Saving | |
| Geological |as in the| which |Saving| per | in |Saving|
| Formation. |preceding| fences | in | hedge,|quantity| per |
| | table. | may be |width.| per | per | cent.|
| | |reduced.| | acre. | acre. | |
+--------------------+---------+--------+------+-------+--------+------+
| | Links. | Links. |Links.|Chains.|Perches.| |
|1. Red Sandstone | 15 | 9 | 6 | 2·83 | 2·71 |1-7/10|
|2. Lias | 18 | 10½ | 7½ | 3·22 | 3·86 |2-2/5 |
|3. Oolite, Forest }| | | | | | |
| Marble, and }| 12 | 7½ | 4½ | 1·88 | 1·35 |0-7/8 |
| Cornbrash }| | | | | | |
|4. Oxford Clay | 16 | 9½ | 6½ | 2·53 | 2·63 |1-2/3 |
|5. Coralline Oolite | 14 | 8½ | 5½ | 1·88 | 1·65 |1 |
|6. Kimmeridge Clay | 16½ | 10½ | 6 | 2·28 | 2·18 |1-3/8 |
|7. Upper & Lower }| 12 | 7 | 5 | 1·79 | 1·43 |0-9/10|
| Chalk }| | | | | | |
+--------------------+---------+--------+------+-------+--------+------+
The average quantity of the above saving is 1⅖ for every 100 acres.
If this saving were effected, which is quite practicable, it would
increase the cultivated land in England and Wales 490,000 acres,
and would be similar in its effect to the addition of a new county,
nearly equal in extent to Nottinghamshire, and somewhat larger than
Berkshire.”—_Morton’s Cyclopædia of Agriculture_, p. 859.
The above is the evidence of a highly practical gentleman as regards the
loss by bad, wide, and straggling fences; and if we add to this the
additional loss and injury which the land sustains by the growth of
hedge-row timber, we shall find that we have even a greater account to
settle. Now, if we inquire into the nature of these evils, we shall find
that they result from shade, drip, and exhaustion by roots.
There are those who speak in favour of hedge-row timber as affording
shade for cattle; but we should remember that when this is so, the
cattle, by being thus gathered to one spot, only aid in manuring those
portions of the field where the grass is always more rank than
nutritious, and this to the robbery of other portions of the field. For
ourselves, we would rather have our fields exposed to the influence of
sun and air, and, if required, have some contrivances for shade which
could be moved about the fields at pleasure. The shade of trees keeps
off those refreshing showers so important to vegetation, but in much wet
the trees send down a drip which is sometimes found to be so injurious
as to prevent any good growth beneath them, and then as the leaves fall
off they often poison the soil for some distance, while the roots
impoverish the land in every direction.
We have just visited a field, in the southern hedge of which are
growing some beech trees; these not only keep off the southern sun, but
their drip and fallen leaves render fully one-eighth of the field nearly
useless.
Again, do we not everywhere find twice the number of hedges that are
required; and, to add to the mischief, these filled with trees? In many
places we see elms not more than three yards apart. Here the shade would
be intolerable, but the farmer is allowed to lop them until they look
not unlike the stuck-up tails of French poodle dogs—a process which
certainly diminishes the evils they entail upon the farmer, but renders
the timber comparatively useless.
But, say the advocates of tall hedges and hedge-row timber, “How
beautiful they make the country look! Your plan would leave it all bare
and desolate; no song of birds to cheer the wayfarer,” &c. But stop,
good people; we love trees, but we do not care so much for straight
lines of stuck-up _besoms_. Let the landlord grow his woods and his
groves, and plant his parks. Let him put trees in parts which will grow
nothing better, and in belts to keep off malignant winds; and even here
(the best places for them), let him be content with their pleasure and
profit as a rent for the ground they occupy, and not, as some do, insist
upon the tenant yearly planting trees in positions which must injure so
much land which he is still to pay rent for. This is about as tyrannical
as to make a schoolboy carry a birch, and ask for its application.
As regards the loss of land by the division into smaller fields, we
cannot do better than copy the former outlines of an arable field on our
own farm. This, which is now one field of over fifty acres, was
formerly in fifteen fenced fields, each with a ragged hedge—of anything
but quicks—planted upon raised mounds. Now, the gain in the removal of
fences, indicated by the dotted lines (see fig. 1), may be explained by
the following calculations:—
[Illustration: FIG. 1. _Field with its old divisions, now removed, as
marked by the dotted lines._]
Acr. Rds.
Ground, 2 yards wide, occupied by the mounds and
hedges, about 1 2
One foot and a half on either side of the
mounds which cannot be ploughed, about 0 3
--------
Total of gain in 50 acres 2 1
Or, per cent., 4a. 2r.
From these data, then, we may conclude that if available land equal in
extent to a county may be gained by keeping fences within bounds, this
may be more than doubled by grubbing up, not merely useless, but
mischievous fences, and discountenancing the growth of hedge-row timber.
Now, although we reside in the county of the Dorsetshire poet, we are
not of those who would curtail the privileges of the poor by closing up
all footpaths, or by too rigidly curtailing the road space; but as long
as the farmer has to pay rent for the ground needlessly occupied by
badly-constructed hedge-rows, we think it due to him, and even to the
poor themselves, that land now so occupied should in future be made
food-producing; and with these sentiments we would conclude this chapter
by quoting the following
DORSETSHIRE DITTY.
(_From Poems by William Barnes._)
“They do zay that a travellin chap
Have a-put in the newspeäper now
That the bit o’ green ground on the knap
Should be all a-took in vor the plough.
He do fancy ’tis easy to show
That we can be but stunpolls at best,
Vor to leäve a green spot where a flower can grow
Or a foot-weary walker mid rest.
’Tis hedge-grubbèn, Thomas, an’ ledge-grubbèn
Never a done,
While a sov’rèn mwore’s to be won.
“The road, he do zay, is so wide
As ’tis wanted vor travellers’ wheels;
As if all that did travel did ride,
An’ did never get galls on their heels.
He would leäve sich a thin strip o’ groun’
That if a man’s veet in his shoes
Wer a-burnèn an’ zore, why he coulden zit down
But the wheels would run over his tooes.
Vor ’tis meäke money, Thomas, an’ teäke money,
What’s zwold an’ bought
Is all that is worthy o’ thought.
* * * * *
“The children will soon have noo pleäce
Vor to play in, an’ if they do grow,
They will have a thin musheroom feäce,
Wi’ their bodies so sumple as dough.
But a man is a meäde ov a child
An’ his limbs do grow worksome by play,
An’ if the young child’s little body’s a-spweil’d,
Why, the man’s wull the zooner decay.
But wealth is wo’th now mwore than health is wo’th;
Let it all goo
If ’t ’ull bring but a sov’rèn or two.”