Hedges and Hedging. 689 



from the ground, but this treatment will be rarely necessary if the 

 hedge is properly cared for from the time of planting. 



Hedges in a situation where tidiness is an object require to be 

 trimmed twice a year, once in June and again in September. 



The best tool we have for topping hedges is a bill, known as 

 the " Dunse make," with the entire blade of steel, being made 

 very light for trimming one year's growth and heavier in proportion 

 to the work required of them. They can be had from any of our 

 leading nurserymen. 



Since the introduction of railways, hedges have been planted over 

 a wide extent of country, and in most cases a good deal of attention 

 is paid to them by the different companies ; the soil is generally dug 

 over near the roots, and grass and rubbish prevented from growing 

 up through them and preventing a free circulation of air. Although 

 such treatment is rarely advisable at a plantation side, where prac- 

 ticable those fences situated on arable land would be much better to 

 be so treated. The hedge would not only benefit, but weeds would be 

 prevented from seeding, and consequently be a means of keeping 

 the land clean. 



[To he continued.) 



Pkuning Evergeeens.— The facility with which strong growing and hardy 

 evergreens may be pruned, or brought into shape by pinching back, is well 

 known. A more systematic experiment in giving a fine growth and sym- 

 metry of form to an injured and distorted Norway spruce, is described by 

 Gen. W. H. Noble in the Gardener's Monthly. The tree was forty feet 

 high, and had lost many of its outer branches by an unusual drought and an 

 intensely cold and cutting winter storm, and had become enfeebled in vigour, 

 A year or two later a systeinatic spring pruning was given — first by taking 

 off eight feet of its top down to dormant buds and small tassels just above a 

 tier of small limbs. These limbs were cut back to the tassels of side shoots, 

 nearest the trunk, and so on all the way down the tree, each a little longer 

 than those above, giving the tree a slender conical form. Some limbs were 

 taken entirely out. The result was entirely satisfactory. The little tassels 

 swelled out with a graceful droop, and the whole became covered with robust 

 verdure. We tried a somewhat similar experiment on hemlocks twenty feet 

 high, which were becoming thin below by too much shading, with entire 

 success — taking care to leave at every cut enough of the small green foliage 

 to start a new growth. 



Removing Stumps.— The following recipe has proved very successful in the 

 backwoods of America for removing the stumps of trees. In the autumn 

 bore a hole of one or two inches in diameter and about 18 inches deep ; put in 

 U ounces of saltpetre, fill with water, and plug up close. In the following spring 

 put in the same hole half a gill of kerosene oil, and then light. The stump will 

 smoulder away without blazing, and the fire will go to every part of the roots, 

 leaving nothing but ashes. 



