Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations.

  • Kalm, Pehr, 1716-1779.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    351/520 (page 317)
    kitchen gardens, &c., than [T. I. p. 313] hedges of all sorts of prickly trees, sometimes also of trees without thorns, and when these are somewhat old they are cut down that new scions may shoot up from the cut-off stubs. A dead fence is in the meantime erected for as long a time as the upshooting scions take to acquire a sufficient height, so that they can themselves fence off the cattle. Now, I have just above described how an entirely new hedge is used to be laid down in England, therefore I will here give in detail the latter, or how to renew an old hedge, and erect a so-called dead-fence, död häck, &c. I will describe it in the manner in which this work is performed here in Hertfordshire, where it is commonly held that the folk understand this work best of all in the whole of England. When a new-planted hedge is nine years old, it is commonly cut down, partly that the owner may get fuel from it, both for himself and to sell to others, partly that he may get a new and better hedge from the upshooting new scions; for when a hedge has stood for nine years, a part of the trees in it begin to grow old and to go off, so that it is no more so thick as before. In performing this job all the trees are cut down quite close to the ground, which do not grow in a straight line in the middle of the hedge where the dead fence is to be erected; but a part of the trees which thus stand in the middle of the hedge, as many, namely, as one considers on the spot will be necessary, are left to stand till one has entirely cut down the others. After that, staves, stafrar, are taken from the leaf- trees which had stood in the hedge, the twigs, qvist- arna, cut off, and the staves made quite smooth. The length of every stajf is made 4 feet 6 inches. The thick- ness is from £ [T. I. p. 314] to 2 inches diameter, and sometimes more. These 4 feet 6 inch staves, are set all