meration of some of the principal uses to which it has either been already applied, or for which it may be employed in arts and domestic economy,

Garden walls, rails, and other fences.

We can form an idea of a thousand uses to which this wood could be applied with economy in rural affairs, could it be obtained in abundance. Garden walls are reared in this country at a great expence; and even when reared, are liable to many accidents: but were larch wood to be had in abundance, a wall capable of enduring for a great length of time might be erected, by placing some upright posts of a proper size at due distances, and nailing upon these boards of larch wood, till it should attain the height required. These walls, for fruit trees, would be infinitely preferable to any other sort yet employed, as the nails could always be driven precisely in the place wanted; and nails of a much smaller size han are at present employed, indeed tacks of no large size would hold perfectly firm, so as to give room for a prodigious saving in the article of nails ;-and if these tacks were made of cast iron, which they might easily be, the saving here would be immense.

It is hardly necefsary to take notice that espaliers of this wood would be proportionally beneficial.

With regard to other fences, it is sufficiently obvious that all kinds of railing would be, of this wood, so much more durable than of any other kind known in this country, as to render fences of that sort eligible on many occasions where they cannot be had at present. Were we indeed to enter

on a computation of the national saving that would accrue from the use of dead fences, in place of living, by obtaining the ground that is lost on embankments: by the additional produce that would be obtained even on the flat fields near to a dead fence, and that which can be got from the ground exhausted by the roots of bushes and hedge plants; and should we add to these, the being freed from the ravages of sparrows, wherever hedges are employed as fences for corn fields; and the benefit the farmer would derive from being freed of the trouble of annually rooting out noxious weeds, the seeds of which are blown from plants that spring up in his hedges, which cannot be there extirpated; the amount of it would be so great as to exceed any calculation that a man would at the present time venture to put down in figures. There can however be no doubt but several millions of people might be well supported upon the ground that in this island at present is lost and deteriorated by these means

*To give some slight idea of the lofs that is thus sustained in Britain, I beg leave to refer to the recollection of every person who has travelled in England, if he has not remarked that in a great many places, particularly in the richest counties, the fences in general consist of a great mound of earth, frequently ten or twelve feet. in breadth at the base, stuck full of thorns, briars, brambles, hazle, and a variety of other brush wood, beyond which is usually a ditch of about six feet more. Nor can the plough approach within less than three feet of all this waste ground on either side, which is besides rendered almost barren and useless by the roots of the trees spreading in it. This would make a border of twenty-two feet a round every field thus inclosed, that may be said to be totally annihilated for the purposes of husbandry. From a field of five acres so inclosed, if you suppose two sides of it bounded by a road, there would be

A kind of dead fences have lately been introduced into practice in those parts of Scotland where extensive plantations of Scots fir have been made;

a lofs of three quarters of an acre nearly, or about one seventh part of the whole. If it were divided into gardens of a quarter of an acre each, the lofs would be more than one half of the whole.

But say, that instead of one seventh, which may be nearly the proportion wasted in the richest and best inclosed grounds in the kingdom, the real waste upon the whole of Britain thus incurred fhould not exceed one twentieth part: as it is computed that there are above fifty millions of acres in Britain, this would bring the waste arising from this source to two millions five hundred thousand acres ; and as the produce of an acre of land well cultivated will maintain two persons for one year, the land thus wasted might sustain no fewer than five millions of persons!!!

Nor is this the whole of the lofs accruing to the nation from living hedges; the destruction that is done by sparrows upon corn fields surrounded by live hedges is immense, and baffles all calculation. The labour too that is employed annually in making and repairing hedges, and the waste that arises from beasts breaking through such imperfect fences, if fairly estimated, would amount to a vast sum; all of which may be accounted a real waste, and a dead draught from the wealth and industry of the nation. These defalcations are not adverted to, because the abuses that give rise to them are of old standing, and have crept into use imperceptibly. But there can be no doubt, that in small fields of rich land thus inclosed, the average produce that might be obtained from them, were the, live fences entirely removed, and others of the sort recommended in the text substituted in their stead, might be augmented at least one fourth more than it is at present; and consequently the rent that could be paid for these fields would be augmented in a yet higher ratio. It behoves men of sense to advert to a circumstance of such immense impor

tance.

Should the beauty of live fences be deemed an object of so much consequence by some, as to make them willing to forego some advantages for the pleasure of looking at them, that beauty may by the help of our fences be obtained without lofs, by substituting fruit trees or berry bufbes in lieu of the barren brush now employed. Should

and where of course that kind of wood can be got at a small expence. The thinnings of these plantations which are cut out when the trees are the thicknefs of a man's leg and under, are cut into lengths of four or five feet, according to the height of the intended fence; these are pointed at one end, and sawed streight across at the other; they are

then placed in a row at small distances from each other, and driven into the earth with a wooden mallet, leaving their tops all of one height. Upon the top of these is fixed a lath of wood sawed,

the fence be made of larch supports, joined together by sawed boards about four inches broad, running horizontally, at the distance of six or eight inches from each other, the branches of a jargonelle pear or an apple of any valuable kind, might be trained, horizontally along these bars as if upon a wall; and if one tree was planted on one side the fence opposite to the interval between two trees on the other side of it, the whole might thus be filled on both sides. This could easily be done by means of lists and nails or tacks driven into the wood; but even these two articles of expence might be saved, if a thin piece of lath were nailed along the upper part of each bar, leaving a small opening of about a quarter of an inch between the lath and the bar. Thus might the branches be fastened to this lath by means of withy er willow twigs, and no nails whatever used.

Should currants or other berry bearing bushes be preferred, they might be fastened by a similar contrivance, and the tops be allowed to advance so far above the wood as to give it the appearance of a live hedge. In rich grounds abundant orchards might thus be obtained, and the waste occasioned by their roots be plentifully repaidby the fruit.

The only other use that can be pleaded for live hedges is for affording fire wood. But this could in all cases be much more economically obtained, where necessary, by appropriating a patch of ground of a proper size for the farm entirely to that purpose, as has been very properly recommended by lord Kames, as a necefsary appendage to every farm. Sce gentleman farmer.

which joins the whole together. Thus it has a neat appearance, and is upon the whole a fence which has every thing that could be desired, were it sufficiently durable. Were it made of larix, that quality would be obtained, so that it would be quite complete.

Those who live in countries that are already inclosed, are, upon the present plan of fences, subjected to no other lofses or inconveniences than those above enumerated: but where inclosures are not yet made, a man's life-time must be nearly elapsed before live hedges can be made a sufficient fence; so that it is impofsible to estimate the lofs, and trouble, and embarrassment to which he is thus subjected

*

*To plant hedges in a country where hedges already abound, is not an enterprise of immense difficulty, because dead brush in such a situation can always be obtained to make a temporary fence for its protection; and because the hedge, on account of the shelter it there obtains will advance with greater rapidity. The domestic animals too in such a country, not being occustomed to range so much at large as in open countries, the farmer is not subjected to so much trouble in guarding them against damage as in the other situation: buť a man who attempts first to rear hedges in an open country, where no trees or shelter abound exposes himself to an innumerable train of vexatious anxieties; for which he can scarcely ever receive an adequate compensation. Hence we see in every such part of the country many attempts of this sort that have proved abortive, where, after great sums of money had been uselessly expended, the fields are left in a mangled and often deteriorated state, from the abortive operations' that have been made upon them. Men of sense, by whom alone every important improvement in a country must ultimately be carried forward, seeing these distressing evils before their eyes, are deterred from engaging in such ruinous enterprises, the country is left unenclosed; and thousands of conveniences must be foregoed, because of want of fences. By the mode here proposed, this great evil might be universally