2 FEBRUARY 1934, Page 17

- Country Life

l'he Hedge's Enemies

A very large bonfire is burning on an East Anglian farm. It beacons the significant fact that, a good Fart ctf the winter work on the farm consists in the grubbing up of hedges. The fire is fed on this occasion not by hedge trimmings but by hedge roots. Now there are two views of the hedgerow. One is that it is a line of bushes and trees, especially designed by the backward folly of-our ancestors, for the harbouring of rats, mice, weasels and other vermin ; for the better protection of weeds' and the provision of a base from which they may scatter their harmful seeds over the neighbouring crops. It also, by the spread of its roots, prevents the cultivation of a wide space of otherwise fertile land.