FENCING, WALLING, HEDGING. 67 



anywhere for a mouse. The yews may be jjlanted a foot 

 apart, and be allowed to grow into one another ; which they 

 soon will, cutting only the surface back and front to keep it 

 all even. At first, of course, the clipping will be but slight, 

 because they will not have grown much ; but in three or four 

 years they may be cut u]3right both at the front and at the 

 back. The growth will soon be sufficient to enable you to 

 form a flat green wall ; and when it is high enough you may 

 cut doA\Ti the tops to the height you intend the hedge to be 

 permanently. 



Peivet Hedge. — The privet is a rapid growing shrub, and 

 is greatly used for hedges where a quick growth is required. 

 This is planted a foot apart, and cut down to six inches if a 

 good bottom is wanted. In a single season it will go to almost 

 any length ; but cutting back is necessary to thicken it. A 

 well managed privet hedge is a formidable barrier ; but as it 

 is nearly deciduous, it is not a favourite inside boundary ; and 

 until it is pretty old, and well managed all the time, it would 

 be rather a weak afiair to keep out cattle. 



Hornbeam Hedge. — Hornbeam is a strong bush for a 

 hedge. It will grow thick, and bear training to anything. We 

 have, in our time, had to grub up a hornbeam hedge that had 

 been well managed for years, after it had become a wooden 

 wall of twelve feet high ; but it had been then allowed to 

 grow just at it pleased, and there was no doing anjiihing with 

 it but grub it up. This shrub or tree, for it is just what we 

 like to make of it, soon grows into a hedge size ; and from the 

 instant it has attained the height you want, and you begin to 

 trim it in, it forms timber, and its smallest branches get stiff; 

 and it presents, in winter, a stack of hardened shoots that 

 nobody could attempt to pass. As an exterior hedge it is, 

 perhaps, as strong a one as you can adopt, and in time becomes 

 almost a w^ooden wall ; which looks solid in summer ; and 

 when the leaves haA'-e fallen, which is only just before the new 

 ones come on, the wood itself seems to defy the passage of 

 anything, however small. 



Other Hedges. — Many other plants make hedges for 

 gardens. INIessrs. Brown of Slough had, when they occupied 

 the Eoyal Nursery, now Turner's, a hedge formed of the 

 Pyrus japonica. Sweetbrier hedges are great favourites, for 

 the exquisite perfume of the foliage, while they become 

 strong barriers as they get matured. The hedge-nut, or nut 



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