12 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



to time, as the hight of the hedge. This permitted 

 the shorter and weaker stems to grow without check- 

 ing till they reached the proper line. 



The result was, that in the third summer from 

 setting out the plants there was a good hedge, suffi- 

 cient to turn ordinary cattle, as it seemed. Cer- 

 tainly in all subsequent years it was impervious to 

 man or beast. And it had a foundation as firm 

 as a fence. 



Cutting. If this is done when the plants are 

 young, they are so succulent that an amateur can 

 readily trim two hundred feet in an hour, and feel 

 no fatigue. 



Laying Down. I have this year adopted a plan 

 that I deem a great improvement, and I have done 

 it with stems varying from a quarter to an inch in 

 diameter, thus : I cut off with nippers a number of 

 stems to the hight of two fret, so that the stems, left 

 at each end of the cutting, when laid down and woven 

 into the upright cut stems, would cross each other, 

 and give at least two lines of lateral stems, passing 

 in and out of the cut stems, thus giving a living 

 fence of about two feet high. I expect to trim the 

 growth from these next summer to about three feet 

 high, leaving the laterals to grow with little or no 

 trimming, to form the hedge into the pyramidical 

 form ; which is essential, as lower branches will not 

 flourish if upper branches overhang them. 



If anyone can show more perfect fences that 

 have thus been produced, I have yet to see or hear 

 of them. 



