Jobn Bvelgn 285 



Et dubitant homines serere, atque impendere curam ? 



Georg., ii. 



" And shall men doubt to plant, and careful be ? " 



Let us therefore shut up what we have thus labo- 

 riously planted, with some good quickset hedge. 



THE HAWTHORN. 



The hawthorn * is raised off seeds ; but then 

 it must not be with despair because sometimes 

 you do not see them peep the first year ; for 

 the haw, and many other seeds, being invested 

 with a very hard integument, will now and then 

 suffer imprisonment two whole years under the 



* The hawthorn, of all other thorns, is the best calcu- 

 lated for forming a good fence ; and in all new enclosures 

 is solely applied to that purpose. The plants should, at 

 least, be three years old, with good roots, and put down 

 in single rows, allowing four inches between each plant. 

 Such a hedge, if properly attended to, will in six years 

 be proof against sheep arid cattle ; but if neglected for 

 the first two years, especially if the land be poor, much 

 art will be required to form it afterwards into a good 

 fence. 



Quickset hedges are of great antiquity. It appears 

 from Homer that, when Ulysses returned to his father, 

 I^aertes, the good old man, had sent his servants into 

 the woods to gather young thorns, and was occupied 

 himself in preparing ground to receive them. Odyssey, 

 lib. xxiv.^ Varro calls this sort of fence, Tutela nat- 

 uralis et mva. And Columella prefers it before the struc- 

 tile one, or dead hedge, as being more lasting and less 

 expensive. Vetustissimi auctores vivam sepem structili 

 pr<ztulerunt, quia non solum minorem impensam desider- 

 aret, verum etiam diuturnior immensis temporifyus per- 

 maneretDs. R. R., lib, xi. 



