PLANTING A THORN-HEDGE. 293 



Fully participating in this opinion of the hawthorn, 

 let us notice its cultivation for purposes of utility rather 

 than of beauty. Hawthorn-plants are easily raised 

 from the ripe haws, or seed of the plant, but some care 

 is required in collecting it. If a large heap of haws be 

 allowed to lie long together, the fruit will ferment, 

 and the vegetative powers of the seed will be destroyed. 

 When sown, the seed does not germinate till the second 

 spring ; and when sufficiently advanced, the young seed- 

 lings must be planted out from the seed-bed, and culti- 

 vated for two or three years longer, before they are fit 

 for the purpose of a fence. They are, indeed, some- 

 times used at a very early age ; but it is considered 

 better to purchase from the nursery at once plants of 

 six years old or thereabouts, and which will more 

 speedily become useful in their new situation. 



There is another and a quicker way of raising thorn- 

 plants, which is sometimes adopted. This is by plant- 

 ing fragments or trimmings of the roots, which may be 

 obtained in transplanting and renewing hedges. These, 

 if placed in a bed of good earth, will shoot out in the 

 following spring, and furnish the materials for a hedge 

 in a much shorter time than by raising them from seed. 

 Such cuttings must be buried deeply in the earth, 

 beyond the influence of frost, or they will not succeed. 

 The general practice of nurserymen, however, is to 

 raise the plants from seed. 



The method of planting a thorn-hedge depends 

 entirely upon the nature of the soil ; if this be high and 

 subject to drought, it may be necessary to plant the 

 hedge below the common surface of the field, to save the 

 plants from being entirely dried up : if, on the contrary, 

 the soil be very wet and marshy, the hedge must be 

 raised considerably above the common surface, by means 

 of an embankment on the top of which it is planted ; 

 for the hawthorn never prospers on cold wet soils. 

 Where the soil is neither too wet nor too dry, and where 

 there is no need of the drainage afforded by a ditch, 



