NEWE^GLrAND FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY J. B. RUSSELL, AT NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (at t 



HE Aghicultvral Warehouse.)— T. G. FESSENDEATEDirORT 



VOL.. IX. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 2t^ 18 3 1. 



NO. 27. 



CS^E)212ll'^£f 2^* JlSSa^STSa I so as to leave an incli of tlie green bark or top 



" — '■ — '"' j with four buds or eyes. 



LIVE FENCES. | 5. Spare plants. — Select a tenth or more of 



Mr Fesse.vdex — If you think the following direc- ' yoor best plants, and set in your Nursery in wide 

 ons for setting and training a hedge, which were wiitten ; rows, and at a distance from each other in the 



ir the use of my son, will be serviceable to our New 

 ngland Farmers, you are at liberty to publish thetti. 

 hey were written in haste, while 1 was quite sick, and 

 infined to my chamber ; there is considerable tautology, 

 id the language inelegant, but I believe easy to be 

 iderslood. Benjamin Shurtleff. 



Boston, Jan. 10th, 1831. 



t EAST WAT TO MAKE A COMPLETE HEDGE 01. 

 LIVE FE>'CE I.X .\ SHORT TI.ME. 



1. Material for a ht'dsce. — The plants commonly 

 'ed for a hedge are the English White Thorn 

 ■atas:us OTi/canlhn,)l\\e Purging Buckthorn {Rham- 

 w calharticus,) the Newcastle Thorn, ( Cratce- 

 IS eras Gain,) the Tliree Thorned Acacia or 

 Dney Locust, (G/f, '/((.?<■/)(« triacanthos,) the Red 



dar, (Juniperus T'irffi7iiana) SfC, But I much 



Cfer the American, Virginian, or Washing- 

 Thorn, (Crata:gus cordala.) It seems to have 

 enemy. In more tlian half a mile of hedge, I 

 I not find a dozen caterpillars' nests, or one plant 

 •died by mice during the last year. 



2. Season to set a hedge. — In our climate a 

 Hge should be set. out in the spring, before the 

 ints begin to vegetate, and every fibre of the roots 

 luld be taken up with them and by no means be 

 , off. 



S. Age of the plants. — The more age the 

 nts have the better ; as they are more hardy, 

 .'e better roots, and are more likely to do well. 



rows, so that the side branches shall not interfere, 

 that you may fill vacancies in your hedge, siiouhl 

 any occur. Manure and hoe them, so as to keep 

 them well ahead of your liedge, so that when set in 

 a gap, they will not be behind their neighbors. 



6. Preparation of the soil. — Let your land be 

 well prepared, a strip at least eight fi^et wide, 

 deep ploughed, well harrowed, raked over, and 

 cleared of all sward, sods, grass, and weeds ; let 

 it be as well prepared as if you were to sow gar- 

 den seeds. If any part of the land is poor, harrow 

 and rake in old and well rotted manure that will 

 not ferment ; then plough or dig a trench through 

 tlie middle, 8 or 10 inches deep, one side perpen- 

 dicular, and the other with a gentle slope or angle 

 of Uiirty degrees. 



7. .Mode of jilajiting. — Your land and plants 

 thus prepared, lay your plants on the inclined plane 

 or sloie, in a straight line nine inches apart (more 

 or less,) and as deep as they originally were in 

 the Nirsery, making allowance for the dry dirt, 

 that rniy be blown or washed away ; set them so 

 deep tiat all the yellow part may be completely 

 coverid ; then with a lioe carefully draw on the 

 mellov earth to cover the roots, and press and pat 

 it dv,-.". well around them. They had better be 

 .- .1 ; little deeper than a liuls shallower, than when 

 in the Nursery, and they will bear it, as in the 

 Nurserj they were perpendicular, but in the trench 

 sloping. It will be best not to fill the trench com- 



theth down to the height you mean to keep your 

 hwif,'e, but the side branches should be gently 

 tnimned every year, leaving those longest near 

 the gvounfl, so as to have them broad at the bot- 

 tom aiH taperitig gradurdly towards the tops in 

 the (orni nf a tone, pyramid, a young fir or pitch 

 pine. ' 



Thistrimn.ing of the side branches makes them 

 send ot^tt inore new\.,oots from these extremities, 

 wh.ch by frequeiU trit^,„i„gs will become so thick 

 as to fill up every crevic« from top to bottom in 

 your hedge; while tlx. upright shoots, by not be- 

 mg trimmed, will aace,d with strength, aitd sup- 

 port the hedge. 



10. Pnming i«;.'ni^HW,._Trimming is usu- 

 ally performed with a liedgLbiii or shears ; but a 

 knife with a short an 1 slightly .^rved blade, thick 

 m the middle, an,I tapering to a thin and very 

 sharp edge on each side, is prefenhle to trim off 

 the side branches between the plans. For trim- 

 ming the sides and crcpping the top 01 the hed^e 

 I have used a scythe. I cut off the 'leel, and 

 punch two holes in the same end, and maki. a mor- 

 tise ill the end of a straight pole or snaith and 

 bore two holes through the mortise, and rivetthe 

 scythe to the pole and in the same direction wiii 



the pole, and not at riglit angles as for niowino- 



I put two nibs on the pole. With this you can 

 cut the sides uj) or the tops off very quick and 

 neat. In all your cuttings, cut up if you wish to 

 benefit your lje<lge, cut dotcn if you wish to ruin 



u will rear your hedge in half the time, if you P'^^'^ly, but to leave it a little concave about the 



those that are four years old and upwards, 

 .n you wilHf you use seedlings. Loudon says, 

 faree years old is certainly the youngest tliat 

 uld be planted, and if they are even six or seven 

 .re old, so much the better.' Blaikie says, ' the 

 ! of the quickset plants (whether of one or two 

 is' growth) is not so material, as that the plants 

 luld be of free growth.' I set one hedge in 

 16, with two years old plants, and another in 

 .8, with seedlings, and they have done very well, 

 sidering my inexperience and the awkwardness 



unwillingness of my men to do anything that 

 ir fathers and grandfathers had not previously 

 e. 



:. .issort the plants. — Let your plants be as. 

 :ed ; the large, the small, and the different 

 !S of intermediates, each by themsehes. Sot 

 large on tlie high, poor and gravelly land, and 

 small on the rich land, and in the valleys and 

 ;oms, and those of intermediate size on the in- 

 oediate kind of land. In this way, your hedge 

 grow nearly alike and be very even ; but if 

 intermingle promiscuously large and small, the 

 •e will grow rapidly and will keep the small 

 'n, and your hedge will be uneven and full of 



' you plant the large in the rich hollows, and 

 small on the poor knolls, one part of your 

 ge will be years ahead of the others. Either 

 ire or after planting, cut off the tops of the 

 Its, about an inch from the root or yellow part, 



roots that the moisture may be retained, and that 

 you may be able to draw a few inches of pulver- 

 ized earth every year around the roots, to make 

 them throw out new shoots, and this without rais- 

 ing the surface so much, or making it so convex 

 as to lose the moisture. By laying or sloping 

 your plants, small roots strike down from the old 

 tap roots, and you have a great number of new 

 roots that nourish the |)lants and keep them firm, 

 and prevent them from writhing about. By cut- 

 ting off the top of the jilant, you will have three 

 or four strong upright young shoots, starting from 

 the surface of the ground, instead of a solitary 

 old one. 



8. Hoeing and Clearing. — Let your hedge be 

 perfectly hoed and kept entirely tree from grass 

 and weeds. Care must be taken that the roots, 

 stems, and side branches are not abraded or 

 wounded by the hoe. A little fresh earth oiiglit 

 to be drawn about the roots at each hoeing, and 

 ill the autumn all the leaves should be raked 

 away, to prevent the stems and roots from being 

 girdled by mice. 



9. Pruning, ifc. — Prune either early in the 

 spring, about midsummer, or late in the fall, when 

 there is no flowing of the sap. When you plant- 

 ed your hedge, you preserved every root, but you 

 cut off the top, leaving but four buds, these will 

 produce you four large stems as supports. This 



11. Miscellaneous cbservations. — Slope Ihe tops 

 of your plants to the North, they will not be so 

 liable to be broken down by s.'iow ; or to have 

 their buds injured in the spring, by alternately 

 freezing and tb.-.wing — land that has been in cul- 

 ture is preferable tb new or sward land. 



Two or three rows of white beans or flat tur- 

 nip's, may be sowed on each side of your hedge, 

 but potatoes would shade too much, and onions 

 would poison the plants. Cattle, sheep, &c, must 

 not trample cr browse on them. 



Forest or fruit trees, (except walnut and cedar) 

 may be set in a hedge forty or fifty feet asunder, 

 they make a beautiful appearance, but trim them 

 up ever so high, they damage the hedge, if not by 

 their shade, they will by their roots. If you do 

 not trim a hedge any, it will be strong and thick 

 at the bottom, giving you beautiful white blos- 

 soms and red berries. 



12. Errors and Mistakes. — In my first liedge 

 my land was tough sward, and not well prepared 

 and I set my large jilants that were two years old. 

 perpendicular ; in my second hedge, set out two 

 years after, my land was well prepared, and I set 

 my yearling plants sloping, and it is ahead of the 

 first hedge : had the treatment of both been equal, 

 the first would have been three years ahead of the 

 last. I did not hoe as often as I ought to have 

 done, nor did 1 clear away the leaves in autumn 

 so well as I should have done. 1 lost one year's 

 growth of my hedge by planting two rows of po- 

 tatoes on each side of it, the tops of which grew 

 so luxuriantly, that they completely covered and 



is all the [iruning or trimming the stems or up- shaded the plants. 



right shoots must have, on any condition, till they .My grand error was in cropping the tops, once 



are five or six feet in height ; then you may trim land generally twice a year, with the expectation 



