2t4 THE NURSERY. [MARCH 



The autumn or spring following after planting, examine your 

 hedge, and if any of the plants have died, or seem to be in a very 

 bad state of health, replace them with others from the nursery, 

 placing some fresh earth to the roots of each. 



CRAB AND APPLE HEDGES. 



The common wild thorny crab will make an excellent ground or 

 ditch hedge, and will thrive in a poorer soil than the thorn ; and 

 hedges raised from the pippins of apples do tolerably well and form 

 strong fences ; the former is raised from the pippins, and the latter 

 can be propagated in abundance by sowing the pumice very thick, 

 immediately after being pressed for cider^ on a bed of good ground 

 properly prepared, and covering the whole with fine light earth near 

 an inch deep ; a few plants will appear soon after sowing, but a great 

 crop will come up in spring, which may afterwards be used for stocks 

 to graft on, and also for hedges, where more suitable kinds cannot 

 be had. 



HORNBEAM AND BEECH HEDGES. 



Oar indigenous kinds of hornbeam and beech will make admirable 

 hedges ; the seed of the former, which it produces here in great 

 abundance, will require the same preparation and management in 

 every respect as directed for haws on page 160, &c. 



In Westphalia and other parts of Germany the hornbeam is in 

 great repute for hedges. The German husbandman throws up a 

 parapet of earth, with a ditch on each side, and plants his sets, raised 

 from layers, in such a manner that every two plants intersect each 

 other; then he cuts off the bark and a little of the wood from each, 

 and binds them close together with a hay-band. The plants unite 

 and form a living palisado, which, being pruned or dressed annually 

 with discretion, will, in a few years, make an impenetrable fence. 

 Most other kinds may be treated in the same manner. 



The seeds or mast, as they are commonly called, of the beech, may 

 be sown as soon as ripe, but as the ground-mice, squirrels, &c., are 

 extremely fond of them, it will be the better way to preserve them 

 in dry sand till March, to be then sown either in drills or broadcast 

 in beds, covering them not more than half an inch deep ; for, as they 

 rise with very broad seed-leaves, they could never work up through 

 a thick covering. The beech vegetates the first spring after the per- 

 fection of its seed ; the hornbeam not till the second. 



HONEY-LOCUST AND ELM HEDGES. 



The Gleditsia triacanthos, or honey-locust, will make very good 

 hedges j the seeds are to be sown in March, and covered half an inch 

 deep ; they will come up freely, and when a year old may be trans- 

 planted into nursery rows till of sufficient size to plant. If to be 

 planted in the face of ditches, they will in the second year be in prime 

 condition for that purpose. 



