182 SYLVA BOOK i 



that the main bank be well footed, and not made 

 with too sudden a declivity, which is subject to 

 fall-in after frosts and wet weather; and this is good 

 husbandry for moist grounds ; but where the land 

 lies high, and is hot and gravelly, I prefer the lower 

 fencing; which, though even with the area it self, 

 may be protected with stakes and a dry hedge, on the 

 fosse side, the distance competent, and to very good 

 purposes of educating more frequent timber amongst 

 the rows. 



7. Your hedge being yet young, should be con- 

 stantly weeded two or three years, especially before 

 Midsummer (of brambles especially, the great dock, 

 and thistle, &c.) though some admit not of this work 

 till after Michaelmas, for reasons that I approve not : 

 It has been the practice of Herefordshire, in the plant- 

 ation of quick-set-hedges, to plant a crab-stock at 

 every twenty foot distance; and this they observe so 

 religiously, as if they had been under some rigorous 

 statute requiring it : But by this means they were 

 provided in a short time with all advantages for the 

 graffing of fruit amongst them, which does highly 

 recompence their industry. Some cut their sets at 

 three years growth even to the very ground, and 

 find that in a year or two it will have shot as much 

 as in seven, had it been let alone. 



8. When your hedge is now of near six years 

 stature, plash it about February or October; but this 

 is the work of a very dextrous and skilful husband- 

 man; and for which our honest countrey-man 

 Mr. Markam gives excellent directions ; only I 

 approve not so well of his deep cutting, if it be 

 possible to bend it, having suffered in something of 

 that kind: It is almost incredible to what perfection 



