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Hemlock for Live Fences. By Richard Peters. 



Read March 8th, 1808, 



While my attention was turned to the subject of Hve 

 fences^ on a great scale, for our Jields, it never occurred 

 to me, that I had some of the best specimens of hedges^ 

 in my garden. These have been planted, at least sixty 

 Jour years. I have some, planted about six years. 

 They are composed of what is here called hemlock 

 spruce, but it is the hemlock of our forests. It is to be 

 found in plenty on the TFissahiccon ; and also on the 

 rough borders of our other creeks, whose courses run 

 through a hilly country. The old hedges are now as 

 vigorous, as they could have been in the first years of 

 their being set out. They are close, strong and im- 

 pervious; and never, like the cedar, die at the bottom. 

 They have outgrown the dimensions within which I 

 formerly wished to confine them ; being about six feet 

 in thickness, and five feet in height. They are clipped 

 once a year, (in June, after they have blossomed) with 

 the garden shears ; and can be formed into any figure 

 or shape, as was the fashion in my father's time. Balls, 

 pyramids, arches, are here displayed, in the antiquated 

 taste of former days. They were the acquaintances of 

 my childhood ; I keep them as I found them, and as 

 contrasts to the \\ildness of nature within view of them. 

 These hedges bear plashing, cutting and clipping with- 

 out injury; and nothing of the kind can be neater, than 

 their appearance when newly clipped. They retain 

 their ^-erdure, through the winter, far beyond most of 



