CHAP. CV. CORYLA‘CER. CA’/RPINUS. 2011 
put into prepared ground, and treated as for the charmille ; adding :—“ That the 
hornbeam may grow to your liking, you must dig it four times a year, in 
March, May, July, and September. According as it comes up, you should 
keep it sheared, that it may grow in the form of an even palisade; and when 
it is of a good height, you make use of a hook. If the palisade runs very 
high, you should get a cart made on purpose; and the man who shears it 
gets up in it, and is drawn by one or two horses, according as the workman 
advances in his work.” (Zbid.) A star consisted of five broad paths, with grass 
in the middle, and gravel on each side, cut through a wood of hornbeam, and 
radiating from a round grass-plot, surrounded by a ring of gravel. The wood 
was generally formed entirely of hornbeam; but sometimes the wood was of 
other trees, and only the avenues or alleys were lined by high hedges or pa- 
lisades of hornbeam. The goose-foot may shortly be described as half a 
star; three walks or alleys, corresponding to the three large ribs in the foot 
of a web-footed fowl, radiating from one side of an oval or circle. “ A laby- 
rinth,” says the author of the Retired Gardener, “is a place cut into several 
windings, set off with hornbeam, to divide them one from another. In great 
gardens, we often meet with them, and the most valuable are always those 
that wind most; as that of Versailles, the contrivance of which has been won- 
derfully liked by all that have seen it. The palisades of which labyrinths 
ought to be composed should be 10 ft., 12 ft., or 15 ft. high : some there are 
no higher than one can lean on, but they are not the finest. The walks of a 
labyrinth ought to be kept rolled, and the hornbeams in them sheared in the 
shape of half-moons.” (Jbid., p. 743.) “ Bosquets, or groves, are so called 
from bouquet, a nosegay; and I believe that gardeners never meant anything 
else by giving this term to this compartment, which is a sort of green knot, 
formed by the branches and leaves of trees that compose it, placed in rows 
opposite to each other. A grove, in this sense, is a plot of ground more or 
less, as you think fit, enclosed in palisades of hornbeam; the middle of it filled 
with tall trees, as elms or the like, the tops of which make the tuft or plume. 
At the foot of these elms, which should grow along the palisades at regular 
distances, other little wild trees should be planted ; and the tuft that will by 
this means be found in the inside will resemble that of a copse. There are 
several ways of drawing out these groves; some in regular forms, the plots 
being answerable to one another ; and some in irregular, or the meer effect of 
fancy.” (Jbid.,p.744.) The paths in these groves were of gravel, well rolled, 
and kept very smooth; or of grass, well rolled, and closely shaven, “ after the 
manner of green plots.” The author of the Retired Gardener then adds: “I 
have named a great many sorts of compartments in which hornbeam is made 
use of; yet, methinks, none of them look so beautiful and magnificent as a 
gallery with arches.” He then gives long details for executing this work ; but 
what we have already extracted will suffice to give an idea of the use that was 
made of the hornbeam in geometric gardening. 
Soil and Situation. The hornbeam will succeed in any soil not too warm 
and dry. It is naturally found on cold, hard, clayey soils, in exposed situa- 
tions ; but it attains its largest dimensions on plains, in loams, or clays that 
are not too rich. On chalk it will not thrive, in which respect it is directly 
the reverse of the beech. 
Propagation and Culture. The seeds of the hornbeam ripen in October ; 
and they are produced freely in England, but seldom in Scotland ; the bunches, 
or cones, as they are called, which contain them, should be gathered by hand, 
when the nuts are ready to drop out; or they may be left on the tree till the 
drop ; when, though a part of the seed will have fallen out, there will, in all 
»robability, be enough left for future use, the tree being at present but very spar- 
ingly popeeeees in Europe. The nuts separate readily from their envelopes ; 
and, if they are sown immediately, many of them will come up the following 
spring, and all of them the second spring. If they are preserved in dry sand, 
or in their husks, and sown the following spring, they will come up a year 
afterwards: the usual covering is }in. "The plants may remain in the seed- 
