CHAPTER XXXVI.
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. | ||||||||||||
| Geological Formation, &c. | Average quantity of each field. | Length of fencing. | Length of fencing, per acre. | Width of fencing. | Quantity occupied by fences per acre.[24] | Quantity per hundred acres. | ||||||
| Acres. | Chains. | Chains. | Links. | Perches. | Acres. | |||||||
| 1. Red Sandstone | 5 | 1⁄2 | 15·58 | 2·83 | 15 | 9·05 | 5 | 2⁄3 | ||||
| 2. Lias | 4 | 12·90 | 3·22 | 18 | 12·36 | 7 | 3⁄4 | |||||
| 3. Oolite | 11 | 20·75 | 1·88 | 12 | 4·81 | 3 | ||||||
| 4. Oxford Clay | 6 | 1⁄2 | 16·45 | 2·53 | 16 | 8·63 | 5 | 2⁄3 | ||||
| 5. Coralline Oolite | 11 | 20·75 | 1·88 | 14 | 5·61 | 3 | 1⁄2 | |||||
| 6. Kimmeridge Clay | 8 | 18·25 | 2·28 | 16 | 1⁄2 | 8·65 | 5 | |||||
| 7. Chalk | 13 | 23·27 | 1·79 | 12 | 4·58 | 2 | 4⁄5 | |||||
| The average of the above quantity occupied by fences is | .. | 4 | 3⁄4 | |||||||||
| A wall, 2 ft. wide, with 1 ft. 3 in. on each side, between arable fields (oolite) | - | 2·80 | 1 | 3⁄4 | ||||||||
| A wall, 2 ft. wide, between pasture fields (oolite) | 1·20 | 0 | 3⁄4 | |||||||||
[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. | ||||||||||
| Geological Formation. | Width, as in the preceding table. | Width to which fences may be reduced. | Saving in width. | Length per hedge, per acre. | Saving in quantity per acre. | Saving per cent. | ||||
| Links. | Links. | Links. | Chains. | Perches. | ||||||
| 1. Red Sandstone | 15 | 9 | 6 | 2·83 | 2·71 | 1 | 7⁄10 | |||
| 2. Lias | 18 | 10 | 1⁄2 | 7 | 1⁄2 | 3·22 | 3·86 | 2 | 2⁄5 | |
| 3. Oolite, Forest Marble, and Cornbrash | 12 | 7 | 1⁄2 | 4 | 1⁄2 | 1·88 | 1·35 | 0 | 7⁄8 | |
| 4. Oxford Clay | 16 | 9 | 1⁄2 | 6 | 1⁄2 | 2·53 | 2·63 | 1 | 2⁄3 | |
| 5. Coralline Oolite | 14 | 8 | 1⁄2 | 5 | 1⁄2 | 1·88 | 1·65 | 1 | ||
| 6. Kimmeridge Clay | 16 | 1⁄2 | 10 | 1⁄2 | 6 | 2·28 | 2·18 | 1 | 3⁄8 | |
| 7. Upper & Lower Chalk | 12 | 7 | 5 | 1·79 | 1·43 | 0 | 9⁄10 | |||
The average quantity of the above saving is 12⁄5 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.
Fig. 1. Field with its old divisions, now removed, as marked by the dotted lines.
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:—
| 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.”