The Pyracantha^ or evergreen-thorn, 43 



carries this thickness to no great height, being branched 

 from the bottom, and irregularly diffused into numbers 

 of rambling limbs, mixed and naturally interwoven 

 with many other more flexible sprays and upright 

 shoots, rising in an entangled mass to the height of ten 

 or twelve feet ; but of the altitude which this plant 

 may ultimately attain, in a congenial soil, I am not in- 

 formed. 



The Pyracantha, like most other plants that nature 

 . has in part consigned to human care, requires to be 

 cultivated in its infancy. Stirring the soil and clearing 

 the surface around occasionally from weeds, tends 

 gready to accelerate its progress to strength and matu- 

 rity. Whenever any of its procumbent limbs or sprigs 

 happen to be covered with mould in the genial season, 

 they immediately take root ; so that one original plant 

 may in a few years be surrounded with a numerous 

 progeny, attached to each other by intermediate ties, 

 and connected with the common parent, by conjunc 

 tive bonds of union, at difterent heights from the sur- 

 face. The roots of the Pyracantha, however, do not 

 run far and send up suckers at a distance like the com- 

 mon locust ; so that its propensity to take root, by 

 layers, is no way detrimental to its being closely con- 

 fined within a desirable and correct boundary. 



No plant appears to agree better with pruning than 

 the Pyracantha. Trimming its smaller sprays with 

 the hedge-shears, and loping off its larger limbs with 

 the bill, in proper seasons, and at due intervals, is pro- 

 ductive of a numerous train of new vigorous shoots, 

 and contributes to multiply their entangled ramifica- 

 tions. 



