TREES IN HEDGE-ROWS. 



299 



Some cultivators continue to plant a row of trees in 

 the line of their fences, for the sake of sheltering, beau- 

 tifying, and improving the country. That the growth 

 of forest-trees in hedge-rows has a very pleasing effect 

 to the eye every one must admit ; but we fear the 

 objections against the practice are too weighty to allow 

 of our saying a word in favour of this old custom. The 

 pleasure afforded by their shade, and the picturesque 

 beauty they give to a country, are not sufficient to 

 weigh against such reasons as the following, given by a 

 practical farmer : 



"It is quite impossible, even with the greatest care, 

 to rear thorn-plants to become a good fence, under the 



HEDGE WITH TREES. 



drip of forest trees. Thorns are very impatient of being 

 overshadowed by taller trees ; even trees planted on the 

 top of a mound, betwixt double hedges, rob both of 

 moisture at the roots, and direct the drip among the 

 branches of the thorns. ' To plant trees in the line of 

 a hedge,' says Lord Kames, ' or within a few feet of it, 

 ought to be absolutely prohibited as a pernicious prac- 

 tice. It is amazing that people should fall into this 

 error, when they ought to know that there never was a 

 good thorn-hedge with trees in it. And how should it 

 be otherwise ! An oak, a beech, or an elm, grows 

 faster than a thorn. When suffered to grow in the 



