Gamonia : or, The art of preserving game; and an improved method of making plantations and covers, explained and illustrated

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Preface

Amongst the various arts that contribute to enrich the coffers of the landed proprietor, and to gladden the existence of the lover of field sports, there is none more interesting or important than that of planting, and none which is less thoroughly understood, particularly as it relates to covers for game. Although so many books have been written on the subject, yet it does not appear that there has been one, until within the last few years, that has contained such a general and comprehensive system as would enable the planter in the early stage of his practice to execute his work to the greatest advantage, and to lay out his plantations in such a way as to give the largest profit and to answer in the most perfect manner the purposes for which they were intended. Thus as his knowledge had to be derived more from his own experience than from any principles already established, a great deal of labour and expence

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has been almost entirely thrown away. Trees have been put into the ground without proper preparation of the soil, without draining, and without being judiciously selected and mixed. Covers have been made without the underwood necessary for game ; and thus in a few years time, after the side branches of the trees have died away, the ground under them has become little better than so much grass land, and the object, for which the cover was made, has almost entirely failed.

To remedy these defects it may be of use to those interested in rural pursuits and amusements, if some experienced practitioner in this branch of science would give a compendious view of the most advantageous mode by which plantations and covers can be brought to the highest perfection within a certain time. Sir Henry Steuart has given to the world an elaborate and scientific work, in which the properties of trees, and their general treatment, but more particularly as to their removal, is illustrated with great skill and knowledge. Mr. Cobbett, in his " Woodlands", has entered more into practical detail ; and is sensible, instructive, and satisfactory. But neither of them have touched upon covers for game. The delights of a battue, contingent on such a creation, seem never once to have entered into their calculations.

PREFACE xi

To those who are addicted to the excitements of field sports, and who have had an opportunity of discerning how inefficient the generahty of covers are as preserves for game, it may not be useless to find the deficiency here complained of, in some degree supplied by remarks which concern alike the planter and the sportsman. In an age, when competition is a ruling passion, when the higher orders are strivino- for distinction in the splendour of their residences and the luxuries attached to them, it may be of service to the amateur of the trigger to discover, how his endeavours may be best crowned with success in one of the most bewitching; of rural amusements. He will then not be seen inconnnoded with the overflowings of a bilious temperament, pouring forth the vials of his wrath upon his gamekeeper, when he ouo-ht rather to accuse his own mismanagement, nor expect to find an ill-formed and neglected cover the resort of the pheasant, when it is entirely destitute of every requisite for giving them shelter and protection.

GAMONIA PART I

I

Part I

There has arisen of late years a great rage for planting, not only from that spirit of improvement which has displayed itself in adorning the mansions of the rich, but from the introduction of Battues, which require extensive preserves and numerous covers for the encouragement of game. When we consider the changes which have taken place in the conveniences and luxuries of life from an increase of wealth, and a wider diffusion of knowledge, we shall not be surprised that the modern sportsman has enlarged his views along with the means of attaining them ; and that what some time ago was considered as the perfection of the art, should now be denominated slow.

The veteran who formerly prided himself more on the skill of his performance, than the extent of his powers and the quantity slain, now vies with the youngest of the set to place himself at the head of the list in a day's slaughter. The rising generation, more prompt in their decision and quicker in their aim than their more elderly antagonists, are as insatiate in their appetite for destruction, as they are murderous in the execution of it ; and it is a thing that would scarcely have been credited by our forefathers that two shots should kill in one day three hundred and thirty pheasants, which was done some few years ago at Coome in Worcestershire.

It is not many years since pheasants became so plentiful in the country as to afford an object of general diversion. They were before either confined to Norfolk, or thinly scattered over large tracts of woodland, in which the difficulty of the pursuit enhanced the value of the prey. Thus it was that either some particular soils were supposed alone favourable for their production ; or it was thought that though they might be bred, they could not be induced to remain, without an extensive range of covers.

Now the reverse of this is perhaps the real case.

Although some soils may be better for breeding than others, and likewise such as pheasants will prefer, yet there is none but what will fully repay the labour and anxiety of the judicious preserver. Natural food from ploughed land seems almost necessary to them, yet in some countries, where there is nothing but grass, such as in Herefordshire, artificial food only is used in summer as well as winter, and that Mdth perfect success. In regard to large covers, though

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Li they may be pleasanter to shoot in, as affording a wilder sport, yet as far as pheasants are concerned, they are rather injurious than otherwise. In a small cover the birds are better kept together and fed ; are better guarded from poachers ; and more easily defended from vermin. The pheasant is an extremely timid bird, and when disturbed must have a certain place of refuge and concealment. The nature of the cover and the shelter it affords, are therefore more material than its size. Some think that with a certain number of acres thickly covered over with trees, and with these drawn up like so many bare poles, the object of their anxious wishes will be fully attained.

Nothing can be more fallacious than such an expectation. '

Grass perhaps half dead and withering, under an impervious shade of overhanging branches, with here and there a solitary thistle, is a place of abode ill suited to the disposition and peculiarities of a bird so naturally shy. Trees themselves are of little or no use except for the pheasants to perch in, A strong growth of underwood, with a mixture of briars and brambles that retain their leaves in the winter, is the best calculated for their shelter and protection. This, as they think, will supply an impenetrable denseness of thicket to screen them from the eye of the curious observer, or to guard them from the attacks of an invading foe. Such indeed is their love of retirement from the public gaze, such their dread of exposure.

that they prefer trusting their security to their feet rather than to their wings. A thick, grassy or sedgy cover may offer an inviting seat to the hare or a resting place to the restless rabbit, but by the pheasant it is considered an insidious receptacle, big with suspicion and alarm. Thus a cover should be rather to a certain degree open, than too close underneath, to give them a greater facility of escape from their active pursuers.

A cover of about five or six acres or even considerably less, will give every advantage of attraction and protection to pheasants ; and there will be more execution done in it in proportion to its size, than in one of larger dimensions.

If the whole extent of covers be a new creation, there should be a central preserve with two or three smaller ones around it. The former may be of a squarer shape than the others, whicli are best made oblong from about sixty to one hundred yards in width ; and contracting at the end which lies towards the central preserve to about one half of the widest part. The whole of it may then be taken at once, and the pheasants being driven into a more confined space at the end, the effect will be more brilliant from a greater number being shown in the air at the same time. In a square cover which requires being taken at different times, the pheasants avoid the beaters by running on one side, and thus many of them escape, and are never seen.

The respective position of the covers being arranged, great attention is to be paid to the ground on which they are to be made. In the choice of this, there is no better guide^, than to fix on that wiiich has been already much frequented by game. They know best what suits them. Care should be taken, that as much as circumstances will admit, each cover should lie well to the sun, and, if possible, that there should be a running stream through it. Pheasants as well as all animals love warmth and shelter, and in a hard frost they will go any distance for water, which is quite necessary to them. At that time, if only a particular cover be well supplied with water, it will be seen that almost every bird will be collected there. Any rough ground also affords protection. An old pit, or any moderate inequality of surface, should be taken advantage of. But it is better to have the surface in a general way rather flat, than too hilly. All birds like to move on level ground, besides which, they are more exposed to view on a declivity, and there is nothing that pheasants are more fond of than concealment.

The next consideration is the manner in which the covers are to be made ; and in doing this regard is to be had to the proper preparation of the soil. This is perhaps the most important business of all, and most conducive to a successful issue ; but it is too often ill attended to and little understood.

The method of planting on grass land seems now to be nearly exploded. This is what is commonly called the Scotch system, though the Scotch seem not inclined to acknowledge it as their own. Yet it will be admitted by them that it has been much practised in their country, and it has been no uncommon thing for persons to be sent down from thence to plant large tracts of land in this way at so much the acre. Work executed by contract is frequently but ill performed. Although it may be agreed upon that the plantation is to be made over at a fixed period with a certain number of trees then alive, yet from want of the ground not being properly prepared, many of them will make but slender shoots for several years. The ground will at all times have its fertilizing powers brought into greater activity by being well loosened and stirred, and by this being done the smaller fibres of the roots will be better able to vegetate and extend themselves. If the pitting system be adopted, the hole made will retain the water like a tea-cup, though this may not be apparent to the eye. The consequence will be that a great part of the roots will perish ; and then the top will die ; or the whole plant languish and pine, and thus be very slow in making any forward push.

If then it be desirable to promote an early and vigorous growth by the stimulative process of working the land, it may be of use to examine the different modes of doing this, and then to point out which is the most preferable.

Grass land may be prepared by being ploughed in the common manner_, and having a corn crop taken from it. This will be of service in rotting the sods and pulverizing the soil. But it is a doubt whether the advantage from it is a sufficient compensation for the impoverishment arising from any white crop being grown. This however is certainly an improvement upon the system before alluded to ; as if in the second year before the winter frosts set in, the land be laid up in ridges and in a rough state, the amelioration of it will be going on, and it may the more easily be worked into a fine friable tilth. There is also another benefit to be derived from it, that the land may be laid into a proper form. This is by far the most important thing of all in the whole art of planting, and without it in most soils no trees will do well. It may therefore be here material to speak once for all of the form in which the land should be laid, and the more this can be adhered to, or even effected in old plantations, the better success may be expected.

Stagnant water is the bane of all kinds of trees as well as of every good vegetable production. Some sorts of trees may stand it better than others, but even the willow, luxuriating as it does in occasional irrigations, will not bear wet constantly lying at the roots. If therefore judicious draining be necessary to keep the plants in a healthy state, in the same manner as a pure air and dry soil is conducive to the health of the human body, it remains to be seen upon what principles the mode of effecting it is to be established, and on what process executed.

The first step towards it is to determine in what way water acts upon the soil. On this point there are two different opinions. Some suppose that water runs through the upper stratum of hghter soil until it meets with a denser and more impenetrable body below, where it stops until it is carried off. To cut drains therefore across the fall, would, as it were, tap the part where the mischief lies, and thus lay the land dry. Now though this may be true to a certain extent ; though it cannot be denied, that the water will in time sink down into the ground ; that it will sink faster in light soils than in retentive ones ; in those which have been well stirred rather than in those which have been indurated from time, yet it cannot be admitted that it passes through so quick but that material injury may be effected before it either evaporates or passes off to below. This is abundantly proved by observing the difference of a tree planted on an eminence, or in a hollow. If in draining across the fall the soil is thrown on the upper side, the water will be found dammed up ; and no tree will then grow there as it should do. Even if the soil be thrown on the under side, the further the trees recede from the drain above them the slower will be their growth. This shows the inutility of the tapping system, which may do very well for carrying off water from springs, but not that which lies on the surface.

It may therefore be taken as an undeniable fact that water runs on the surface. This is true even in a piece of raw moss, where, if any where, the water might be supposed to sink into the ground immediately on falling ; but even here, if there is a hollow in any part and no passage made for the water to escape at the side, there it will lodge and prevent the growth of any thing except aquatic plants. If further proof was wanting, let it be observed where the rushes grow in a field, not on the ridge of the but, but at the bottom of it. Wherever there is a low part, whatever may be the depth of soil or quality, there vegetation will languish, and the land get starved unless the wet is removed.

To lay the land therefore perfectly dry and to give a regular and constant passage off for the water, an artificial fall must be created by throwing the land into beds. These should be eight yards wide, they should be well rounded in the middle, but not raised too high ; or if there should be a scarcity of soil, there might be a danger of the sides being left bare. By the land being thus formed, the water will be found to run into the side drains, and from thence into the main ones, and so be carried off for good.

Trenching with the spade is the most effectual, and perhaps in the end the cheapest way of preparing land for planting. By this, the land will be best thrown into the beds already described, and these may be of such a shape as to give an easy and regular fall of the water into the gutters at the sides. The soil taken out from these quite down to the clay, will assist lo GAMONIA

further in laying the land dry, and being spread over the top will give a greater depth for the trees to grow in.

Sir Henry Steuart, in his admirable book "The Planter's Guide/' has entered at length (p. 4-82) into the advantages of trenching for eradicating rushes. These he considers to proceed from two causes ; underground water, and tenacity of soil, which retains water like a cup, and for which he says no cure has been found. With respect to underground water arising from springs, he may be perfectly correct in his opinion ; but he seems to labour under a mistake if he supposes the surface water is to be carried off the same as the other. In like manner there is no foundation for saying, that no cure has been found for destroying rushes in a tenacious soil. An instance to the contrary may be easily adduced. A field of a very stiff nature, with a thin upper stratum, and a strong clayey bottom, had been laid down to grass in buts of eight yards in width. In a few years time it was entirely covered with rushes. A trial was then made of tile draining in the reins. The effect was apparent the very first year, and in a few years scarcely a rush was to be seen, and after being covered with a compost of lime and sea slutch an entirely new verdure made its appearance. This proves in the most striking manner that rain water runs on the surface, and consequently the more tenacious the land is, the easier it is to lay it dry. Sir Henry Steuart has thought otherwise, and acted upon a different principle, and has therefore been led into a false conclusion. The land, he speaks of as having trenched, was done under peculiarly favourable circumstances. It lay on a declivity, and a light porous stratuiTi being underneath, this would act just as an open drain. It also remained in grass. Had it been under the plough and worked out to a dead inert piece of matter, the result might have been different.

The expence of trenching, though it may appear considerable at first sight, yet, considering all its advantages, is perhaps as cheap a method of preparing the land or more so, than any other. The mode of executing it is so fully and accurately detailed in Mr. Cobbett's excellent work on planting the " Woodlands," that it might be sufficient merely to refer to that ; but as one object here is to glean from others, what may be worth collecting, his plan is here laid down in an abridgement with some alterations.

The ground is first to be marked out by a nick of the spade into the size wanted for the beds, these being eight yards in width, and running at right angles from the fence. Adjoining to the fence and following the line of it, there may be made a bed only one half the width of the others, and that sloping all the way from the hedge. The work is then to be proceeded in after the usual manner, the soil being taken out for the trench and removed by the wheelbarrow to the other end of the bed to fill up the vacuum left there on finishing it. It is to be done at two spits with the spade, the sod being laid at the bottom, and the new soil being thus brought to the top. It is not so easy to speak to the depth from the surface being uneven. If the beds be tolerably raised in the middle, the depth will perhaps be twenty inches in the centre and about sixteen at the sides. The cost is Is. 6d. per rod of eight yards in stiff land and Is. 3d. in light. The former would be 1 Ol. the Cheshire acre of eight yards to the rod, and 5l. 10s. for the statute. It may be much doubted, whether if it was necessary to clean and work the same by a fallow with the plough, it could be done at less expence than this, every thing reckoned in, during perhaps a wet season. The price is so named from calculating labour from ^Od. to 2s. a day, and a good workman at this rate will earn from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. a day in the summer time. Mr. Cobbett recommends it being done by the day, as if by the piece, it is apt to be neglected and not done the proper depth. But though there is danger of this, even when the men are well over-looked, yet task work has numerous advantages. It gives encouragement to a hard working man, and it is what he much prefers ; to an idle one it is a great punishment, and therefore puts the burthen where it should be. There are also frequently some on an estate, to whom it is the interest of the landlord to give employment, if it can be done without much disadvantage. It is not because they are such good workmen, but because they get into arrear of rent, and the only chance of getting this from them is by making them work it out. It may therefore in this case answer to both parties, if such defaulters dont rely upon it as a too certain resource, and keep back their payments with a view to the indulgence.

This then, it may be confidently asserted, is the best way for preparing land for planting, either trees or willows from cuttings. It enables the roots to luxuriate in a loose friable mould, and it brings up to their immediate use a new and virgin soil. But the laying of it dry is perhaps for a permanency of more utility than any thing. Neither Sir Henry Steuart nor Mr. Cobbett have ever mentioned how the water is to be got off. This seems a very defective part of their system. If the trenching is done on a dead level, the water will stagnate below, although it may filter through the upper stratum and not be apparent to the eye. When the roots reach this depth, there can be no doubt but that it must be highly injurious to them, if not before.

Sir Henry Steuart thinks that the lower stratum under the trenched part is of great importance to the well-doing of trees ; and that if it was of a light gravelly texture, it would be the best for letting the water percolate through it. The quality of this stratum is no doubt very material, but it may be a question, whether so much so as he supposes, for the reasons already assigned. If the water is carried off on the surface by the artificial fall given to it in the formation of the land, it should never reach the lower range. The quality of this stratum is perhaps of more consequence, as affording strength and support to the trees, when they become the ornaments of the country in size and beauty. A great observer of nature, and the most beautiful dehneator of it of antiquity, has said of the oak : —

" Far as he shoots his tow'ring head on high, So deep in earth his fix'd foundations lie."

It may not be here out of place to make one remark on the quotation given. Virgil uses precisely the same words, in two different parts of his works, in speaking of two trees of an entirely opposite nature ; the oak and the beech. The latter we know spreads its roots horizontally, which running on the surface exhaust every thing that comes within their reach. The oak on the contrary sends its top-root directly downwards ; but it is ascertained that after a certain time this loses its pre-eminence, and disappears amongst the other roots. From this it would appear either that a large licence must be allowed for poetical exaggeration, or that Virgil meant rather to describe the corresponding resemblance that existed generally betwixt the roots and the branches in size and extension, than that the root descended as deep under the ground as the tree rose above it. Single trees that are the most exposed have the largest roots. These also divide themselves at the top into the most numerous branches. Thus they are covered more thickly with leaves to protect them from the severity of the weather. From the peculiar tendency of the roots of the oak

GAMONIA IS

downwards, we may believe that this glorious tree derives much of its sustenance deep in the earth. A rich marl, such as lies generally under all the top-soils in this country, may be highly favourable to its growth and luxuriance, and may be one cause of oaks flourishing so much more on what are called stiff clays than on other soils. But then these must be laid dry, or else they are the worst that can be planted. If this is not done, the trees become stunted, hide-bound, and with their bark all covered with moss. The bark of an oak tree, when young, should be smooth and clean, and at all ages should be quite free from moss.

Another method of preparing land for planting is, by growing a crop of potatoes previously. This no doubt is stirrmg the land thoroughly, and enriching it at the same time ; but if it has to be done on a large scale, it may be a consideration whether when wheat or some other crop can be grown in its place of considerable value, the return will justify the expence. If a quick and large rush of wood is wanted, it may certainly be the means of obtaining it. In ornamental plantations, or in screens about a house, where shelter and effect are the objects proposed, this mode may be properly resorted to, and the result arising from it will be found fully to answer the expectations formed. Two letters appeared a few years ago addressed by Mr. Withers of Norfolk to Sir Walter Scott. These are written with much cleverness, but in rather an arrogant tone. In them he shows most satisfactorily, that the Scotch system of putting in trees by the slit or by pitting, is a waste of time, labour, and expence. That in that way a great part of the trees die ; in pitting they are either killed by wet settling at the roots in winter, or by drought in summer ; that if they do escape immediate or early destruction, they remain for several years in almost a lifeless state from being choked with grass and all sorts of rubbish ; and even then they make no figure for years to come from want of a friable soil for the roots to shoot in. He then recommends trenching the land either with a spade or with the plough, manuring it, but without growing a green crop, and then hoeing it for four or five years. All these seem admirable methods for forcing an early growth, and no doubt great as the expence would be attending it, yet this in the end would be likely to be fully repaid. The hoeing and manuring the land appear quite new, and would probably have an excellent effect.

With every disposition to give credit to the spirit and ingenuity with which Mr. Withers has avowed and supported his system, there is reason to doubt the correctness of his conclusions, when he states the difference of profit in a plantation of sixty-four years planting as calculated at ^1181 14^. 6d. in his own way to £95 lis. in the Scotch way : and he further appears to have misunderstood Sir Walter Scott's meaning, when he says, that as far as he has observed, the difference betwixt the growth of plantations, when the ground has been prepared or otherwise, seems to disappear within the first ten or twelve years, meaning that after that period, they will both make equal progress, not that one will arrive at the same size as the other within a given time. An instance might be produced of a trial having been made of the Scotch system by putting the trees in on grass land by pitting. For the first five or six years their progress was extremely slow, but after that time they came on not in any way inferior to those on prepared land.