408 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



orous growth, uninjured by excess of wet or drouth, or troubled by insect 

 enemies. 



2. It is very easy to transplant. 



3. Bushy in form, rigid in growth, and yet rapid enough, it seems to be a nat- 

 nral hedge plant. Moreover, as we have seen, it is wonderfully patient of the 

 knife, and may be cut to any extent with impunity. 



4. It is easily trained and tended. Probably in the earlier stages the hedge 

 would be improved by braiding and intertwining the tough young branches, 

 according to the European method, but for after treatment I have found that 

 one trimming at mid-summer is all that is required to keep it in perfect shape, 

 and this with very little laboi'. 



5. Chcai)ness. If a demand for plants should stimulate their production 

 they could be afforded at least as low as most of the well known hedge plants. 



C. E. Hewes in the Cultivator speaks full as highly of the beech for hedges. 

 We condense as follows: 



All who are acquainted with the growth of the beech in open land know how 

 scrubby its growth is, and that it seldom attains a height of more than 12 or 

 14 feet. I do not recommend this hedge for ornament, for it cannot be said to 

 be very handsome, neither would I recommend it for cross-fencing, but for a line 

 fence which is to be permanent it is just the thing — rapid in growth, so hardy 

 that it withstands the severest cold of winter and all climatic changes, and so 

 tough and stiff in texture that when it has grown to half the size of one's 

 wrist, the largest, strongest, and heaviest beast on the farm cannot break or 

 btnd it. The beech hedge when once firmly established needs no repairs and 

 will last a ''siiort forever," and when it begins to die death will first show itself 

 on the topmost branches, working slowly down, requiring perhaps years to kill 

 the lower ones. Sowing the beechnut is comparatively an inexpensive process. 

 One a little more expensive is to transplant very small saplings from the woods 

 which (if they do well and are not much retarded by transf.lanting), tuke root 

 and start quickly, will do equally as Avell as sowing the nut, and give a hedge 

 sooner. For a permanent hedge I should say try beech, either by transplanting 

 or sowing the nut. 



ORNAMENTAL GAEDENING. 



ORNAMEISTAL GARDENING. 



Josiah Hoopcs, than whom there is no better authority upon matters of 

 ornsimental gaidening, says concerning the growth of taste in matters of home 

 ornamentation ; 



\VlKn 1 was a boy people planted their lilacs, snowballs and syringas in 

 straight lines, or Avith mathematical precision along the fence. As the collec- 

 tion of shrubbery increased they were then scattered equidistant over the 



