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the bank to be made up of fuch an unusual breadth. For, if one fide of the hedge be cut down quite close to the bank, when it is only two or three years old, the other half will remain as a fence till that fide become ftrong again; and then the oppofite fide may be cut down in its turn; and fo on alternately as long as you may incline: By which means the bank will always have a strong hedge upon it, without ever becoming naked. at the root. And, as this plant, when bruifed, is one of the most valuable kinds of winter food yet known for all kinds of domeftic animals *, the young tops may be ́carried home and employed for that purpose by the farmer; which will abundantly compenfate for the trouble of cutting, and the wafte

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Some may perhaps imagine, that the expreffion in the text is rather too bold; but, I have very fufficient reafon, from undoubted experience, for ufing it.

wafte of ground that is occafioned by the breadth of the bank.

The other method of preferving a hedge of whins from turning open below, can only be practifed where sheep are kept; but may be there employed with great propriety. In this cafe, it will be proper to fow the feeds upon a sharp ridge of earth, shoved up from the furface of the ground on each fide, without any ditches. If this is preserved from the sheep for two or three years at first, they may then be allowed to have free accefs to it; and, as they can get up close to the foot of the bank upon each fide, if they have been accustomed to this kind of food, they will eat up all the young fhoots that are within their reach, which will occafion them to send out a great many lateral fhoots; and these being continually broused upon, foon become as close as could be desired, and are then in no fort of danger of becoming na

ked

ked at the root, although the middle part fhould advance to a confiderable height.

The reader ought to be apprised of one very great objection to this kind of fence, viz. that the feeds are blown by the wind into the fields, and come up in fuch abundance, as to become a very great nuisance. As it is hardly poffible to extirpate them when they are once established, every one, therefore, ought duly to confider what are to be the confequences, before he fows them.

§ XXVII.

A particular Kind of Fence defcribed for Orchards, Bleaching Greens, &c.

The fences hitherto mentioned are only intended to preferve fields from the intrution

fion of cattle. But, on fome occafions, it is neceffary to have a fence that would even refift the efforts of men to break through it; as around bleaching fields, orchyards, &c.; the want of which often fubjects the proprietor of fuch fields to very difagreeable accidents. And, as fuch a fence might, on fome occafions, be procured at no great expence or trouble, it were to be wifhed that the method of doing this were more generally known.

To effectuate this, it is neceffary to begin by trenching up, or ploughing a large belt all around the field you mean to inclofe, of forty or fifty feet or more in breadth, if you find it convenient; the outer edge of which fhould be fenced by a good dike, or a ditch and hedge. This belt fhould be kept in culture one year at leaft, and well manured, if your fituation will admit of it; and laid up before winter, in fuch a manner that no

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water may be fuffered to lodge upon it; and planted, in the winter time, all over with plants of eglantine, fo thick as not to be above two feet from one another. Between thefe, put a good number of young birch plants not above two years old, interspersed with hazels, oak, afh, rawn, (wild service,) and other trees that you think will thrive upon your foil; together with thorns, hollies, brambles, and woodbine (honey-fuckle); and having then fenced it from cattle, keep down the weeds that may rife upon its furface, as long as it is conveniently acceffible; leaving it afterwards to nature.

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If this is done, and your foil be not extremely bad, the belt, in a very few years, will be entirely filled with a close bush of trees, fo intermixed with the bending branches of the eglantine, and bound together by the trailing shoots of the bramble and wood

bine,

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