836 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PAKT III. 



Re Rusticu, lib. xi.) In modern times, we find, from Crescentius (lib. v.), that 

 Imvvthorn 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 nciv method of pruning " quickwood sets of white thorne," so as 

 to make them thick at bottom ; antl 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 Thriftc 

 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 rid^e, 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 

 I)lantations ; 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, woukl, doubtless, obtain the i)refer- 

 cnce. 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 (Pruniis 

 spinosa), in others, the hawthorn (C'ratce'gus Oxyacantha), and in some the 

 buckthorn (Tihamnus catharticus), might prevail. In all these hedges, there 

 nuist 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 166-1, 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 introduction 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 pai't 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; but still, from the alterations which are constantly taking place in landed 

 estates, the subchvision of fields, or the changes in the direction of fences, new 

 hedges are constantly being planted ; and there is not, perhaps, a plant grow n 

 by nurserymen for which there is a more steady and extensive demand than 



