EVERGREENS FOR HEDGES. 63 



almost certainly be inquiring of some one, in the 

 spring, why some of your hedges are killed altogether 

 and others show dead bushes. A gentleman of my 

 acquaintance who owned very fine hemlock hedges 

 insisted on keeping them clipped throughout the 

 season. The result is that he now has so wretched 

 a hedge and so unsightly that what he has not already 

 dug out will soon be removed. I bear strong empha- 

 sis on this point, because so many people who seek 

 to have beautiful homes have a passion for eternally 

 clipping something. Their hedges must be sheared ; 

 the lawn must be equally sheared. To them growth 

 is never beautiful only smoothness. 



(2) When you trim, cut close to the wood of 

 the previous year, but never so close that you do not 

 leave a small portion of wood with leaves on it, for 

 here are the only buds for new growth. Evergreens, 

 unlike deciduous trees, have no dormant buds on old 

 wood that can be developed. If you cut away the 

 leaves, or needles as we should call them, entirely, 

 then you have killed the hedge, or whatever part of 

 the hedge you have so cut. This mischief also 

 occurs from the employment of professional trim- 

 mers that is, of a class of men who do not under- 

 stand anything beyond the formalities of cutting. 

 They seldom comprehend the nature of the growth, 

 and are intent only on keeping the outlines of the 

 wood. You must bear in mind that they will charge 

 the damage to the severity of the winter, or to the 

 heat of the summer, or to some other cause which 

 will not stand investigation; they will not be them- 

 selves responsible. The evergreens I have indicated 

 as hardy do not winter-kill, nor do they burn out in 



