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Pruning and after Management of Hedges^ by Robert 

 Soinerville, From Communications to the Board of 

 Agriculture of England, voL 2d, page 47. London 

 1805. 



Though a strict attention to the foregoing circum- 

 stances, during the infancy of a hedge, is highly ne- 

 cessary to produce healthy, vigorous plants, a very 

 considerable part of its beauty and future value will 

 depend upon the pruning and after management that 

 is bestowed upon it. 



There is perhaps, no part of the subject upon which 

 a greater contrariety of opinion at present prevails, than 

 the age at which the pruning of hedges ought to com- 

 mence, the manner of that pruning, or the season of 

 the year, at which it may be given with the greatest 

 possible advantage, and the least risk ; the practice 

 with some is to prune from the first year, not only the 

 lateral branches, but the tops also, and give as a rea- 

 son, that cutting oif the extremities of the shoots con- 

 tributes to the thickening of the hedge, by making 

 them push out a great number of new ones. — The fal- 

 lacy of this argument, and the mischief with which 

 the practice is attended, we shall elsewhere have oc- 

 casion to notice. — As to the manner of pruning, or 

 the form of the hedge, these seem, with many, to be 

 matters of indifference, no attention being paid to dress- 

 ing them in such a way as to have them broad at bot- 

 tom, and tapering gradually towards the top, many of 

 them being not only of one width from top to bottom, 

 and not a few much heavier and broader above than 



