OF THE COUNTY OF DOWN. 59 



for three or four years, cattle will not readily attempt 

 to pafs it. In weeding young hedges, great care fliould 

 be taken to avoid breaking the tender {hoots, which is 

 moft effectually done by beginning at the bottom, put- 

 ting in the hand between the plants, or, where room 

 is wanting, the fingers only, and neatly drawing the 

 weeds downward j afterwards you may proceed to 

 thofe above, which may be done with lefs danger of 

 mifchief, the fhoots being more vifible. An obfervatioa 

 well worth communicating was made to me by a gen- 

 tleman near Moira, who is a very accurate judge, that 

 quicks grow more rapidly in fmall than in large ditches, 

 in confequence of which he has altered his mode of 

 making them; but, that the fence may be effectual 

 from the beginning, he backs his banks up very high, 

 and makes a little parapet on the brink of the gripe, 

 which anfwers the double purpofe of ftrengthening the 

 fence, and of protecting the thorns from being fpoiled 

 by cattle browfing on them from the front. Another 

 gentleman, in the fame neighbourhood, always cuts his 

 quicks after being fet two years, and finds that, after 

 this operation, they grow with fo much vigour, that 

 at the end of four or five years he has a fence, ftronger 

 by much than in the ufual mode of not cutting them, 

 until four or five years planted ; but it muft be noticed, 

 that he cuts them quite clofe to the bank. One ob- 

 jeftion to fences made in this way, efpecially where the 

 fields are fmall, is the quantity of ground confumed by 



12 them; 



