46 The Pyracantha, or evergreen-thorn, 



the custom house in Alexandria. By careful nursing, 

 my two little plants both succeeded. I planted them 

 in different parts of my nursery, intending to propa- 

 gate from them merely for ornament ; for at that time 

 I had no idea of the Pyracantha being a suitable plant 

 for live fences ; nor ever had heard, or read, that it 

 had been applied to that purpose. Each of these two 

 plants, in about four years, by the extension of their 

 lower branches, covered a space of nine or ten feet in 

 diameter, spread naturally close upon the surface. But 

 in the second year I layed forty or fifty of their sprigs 

 in the ground, after these were rooted next year, I 

 planted them in a row in the nursery, and culled from 

 thence occasionally, several of them for sale : leaving 

 the remainder at last about a yard apart. The two 

 original plants began to bear the third year, and find- 

 ing it more convenient to raise handsome plants from 

 seed, I never troubled myself afterwards to raise them 

 from layers. Being at length in the habit of raising 

 considerable numbers of Pyracantha plants, for the 

 purpose of ornamental hedges to purchasers, and en- 

 couraged by the promising appearance of the short 

 row, raised from layers, and the encreasing strength 

 of my two original plants, I began to entertain a no- 

 tion of trying it on a larger scale, as a live fence, and 

 in the year 1806, commenced the execution of my 

 projected essay. Every part of the farm which I now 

 occupy, on every line where I could have any hope 

 that the hedge-thorn would succeed, being already 

 hedged with that plant. I had no ^vhere to try the 

 Pyracantha but a length of about two hundred yards 

 of thin, meagre clay soil, in a bleak situation, exposed 



