WAY-SIDE HINTS 



up shoots from the roots at a long remove 

 from the parent stem. 



The barberry (Berberis vulgaris) is strongly 

 commended by many, but it has never yet had, 

 so far as I ani aware, fair field trial. A strong 

 objection to it appears to me to lie in the fact 

 that, like the willow, it never inclines to branch 

 from near the roots. It sends up indeed a great 

 number of shoots; but shoots of this kind, 

 growing parallel, and showing few leaflets, 

 or little side-spray, can never make a compact, 

 or even a graceful hedge. The old-fashioned 

 farmers of the East have still another ob- 

 jection, as firmly cherished as any dogma they 

 listen to on Sunday, to wit, — the barberry 

 "blasts the rye." This faith is indeed so 

 firmly and persistently cherished that I have 

 been disposed to look for the source of it in 

 some tribe of aphides peculiar to the bar- 

 berry, which by juxtaposition may transfer 

 its labors to the cereal. 



The native white-thorn remains — and it has 

 always seemed to me that with proper nursing, 

 education, and development, much might be 

 made of this as a hedge-plant. The horn- 

 beam, also, of our forests, is a small tree, of 

 profuse spray, bearing the shears admirably; 

 but, so far as I know, never as yet adopted on 



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