[ 24] 
On Live Hedges. 
Read May 9th, 1809. 
New-Hampshire, Stratham, April 6th, 1809. 
Gentlemen, 
I saw in the Portsmouth Oracle, an advertisement 
by the Agricultural Society of Philadelphia in 1806, 
soliciting information in the art of agriculture ; and 
having been ten years in the farming line, I have tried 
many experiments in almost every branch that our cli- 
mate and soil will admit. From your advertisement live 
fences appeared to be of great importance in your views. 
I have been making them more or less every year since 
I have farmed, with some variations as to the mode. 
When I purchased my farm there were a number of 
the English willows on it; old ones had been cut off 
and young ones had shot out, so that I could get a 
plenty of stakes: Iset many hundred rods of these 
willow stakes on different soils and in different forms ; 
in the mean time I raised nurseries of poplars which I 
supposed I should prefer to the willows: I think it not 
worth while to give the whole particulars of the willows, 
as I think poplar far exceeds them for making live 
fence. I have set out the poplar intending them for 
posts when large enough; I have set many hundred 
rods in this order; some are large enough to nail to. f 
intend topping of them when I nail boards to them, 
that they may be the more firm and steady ; I think 
there are many advantages in these sorts of posts. ‘The 
poplar I believe is so well known in the United States, 
