836 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
Re Rustica, lib. xi.) In modern times, we find, from Crescentius (lib. v.), that 
hawthorn hedges were used in Italy before 1400. In England, they appear to 
have been in use from the time of the Romans. In all the old works on hus- 
bandry, directions occur for quicksetting ditches, and forming hedgerows; 
and in Standish’s Commons’ Complaint, published in 1611, the author gives di- 
rections for a new method of pruning “ quickwood sets of white thorne,” so as 
to make them thick at bottom; and advises, in certain cases, that three rows 
of quickthornes shall be set in each ridge, instead of two, as appears to have 
been the ordinary practice. In a black letter tract, called An Olde Thrifte 
newly revived, &c., published in 1612, very particular directions are given for 
enclosing young plantations “ with a good ditch and quickset of white thorne, 
crab tree, and hollin, mixed together, or else any one of them (and by no 
means, if you can chuse, set any black thorne amongst it, for that it will grow 
into the field’s ward, and spoyle pasture, and teare the wool of the sheepes 
backe).” In Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of good Husbandry, directions are 
also given for making hedges : — 
‘© Go plough or delve up, advised with skill, 
The breadth of a ridge, and in length as you will; 
Where speedy quickset for a fence you will draw, 
To sow in the seed of the bramble and haw.”’ 
Most of these hedges, however, appear to have been made to enclose 
plantations ; and hedges of hawthorn for fields were, probably, not general 
in England till the establishment of nurseries, about the beginning of the 
seventeenth century. The first planted hedges, in every country, would, doubt- 
less, consist of shrubs dug up from the neighbouring woods ; and those which 
appeared to be the most formidable from their spines, and, also, the most 
durable from the nature of their wood, would, doubtless, obtain the prefer- 
ence. But, in different parts of the country, this would give rise to hedges 
formed of different plants: in some places, the black thorn, or sloe (Prunus 
spinosa), in others, the hawthorn (Cratz‘gus Oxyacantha), and in some the 
buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus), might prevail. In all these hedges, there 
must necessarily have been a mixture of plants, from the difficulty of obtaining 
a number of one kind without sowing the seed for the purpose; so that hedges 
formed merely of chance plants, taken out of the woods, cannot even be con- 
sidered as thorn hedges, and, doubtless, not as hedges entirely of hawthorn. In 
Evelyn’s Sylva, published in 1664, he mentions a gentleman who had “ consider- 
ably improved his revenue by sowing haws only, and raising nurseries of quick- 
sets ;” so that nurseries of these plants cannot, even then, have been common. 
Wherever originated, however, it is certain that hawthorn hedges were not 
generally planted, throughout England, to enclose the common corn fields and 
meadows till after the introducticn of the Flemish husbandry into Norfolk, 
about the end of the seventeenth century. The first hawthorn hedges planted 
in Scotland, Dr. Walker informs us, were on the road leading up Inch Buck- 
ling Brae, in East Lothian; and at Finlarig, at the head of Tay, in Perth- 
shire. They were planted at both places by Cromwell’s soldiers. (Essays, 
p. 53.) Hawthorn hedges are now common in every part of the island, unless 
we except the mountainous districts of the Highlands of Scotland, and those 
parts of Ireland which are not yet in general cultivation; and no other plant 
whatever is found to answer equally well for this purpose. The raising of 
hawthorn plants for hedges has, for the last century, formed the most im- 
portant part of the business of country nurserymen; and the profession of 
hedger and ditcher has been one of the most common among the country 
labourers of Great Britain for the same period. Since the peace of 1814, 
and the change in the prices of agricultural produce, fewer enclosures of open 
lands have taken place, and the demand for hedge plants has greatly dimi- 
nished ; butstill, from the alterations which are constantly taking place in landed 
estates, the subdivision of fields, or the changes in the direction of fences, new 
hedges are constantly being planted ; and there is not, perhaps, a plant grown 
by nurserymen for which there is a more steady and extensive demand than 
