226 HOW TO GROW GOOD FENCES. 



If we except the Privet, the examples of plants in 

 our third group are quite unfit for hedge purposes, as 

 they are entirely without offensive armature. Privet 

 hedges are not unfrequent in gardens, where they 

 are useful for boundaries, blinds, and to act as shelter, 

 but as a farm hedge-plant it is quite useless. 



The nut, guelder rose, and elder have none of the 

 qualities for hedge growth that are required by the 

 former ; on the contrary, they have large leaves, and 

 so smother the quicks if they grow with them, and 

 when cut they shoot rapidly, especially in the case 

 of the elder (Sambucus niger), and so make a hedge- 

 row look ragged by here and there growing a yard or 

 so above the ordinary hedge-plants; but, besides 

 this, the lower stems get free from leaves, and hence 

 gaps are easily made in bushes of nut, dogwood, 

 elder, &c. 



In the above description of hedgerow plants we 

 have omitted all mention of yew, holly, laurustinas, 

 furze, and the like, as being more properly materials 

 for ornamental or garden hedges. The furze, how- 

 ever, is sometimes used on the tops of mounds, 

 in some sandy districts, as a fence plant, but the 

 constant dying of the old wood and the consequent 

 exercise by the cottager of a fancied right to pull 

 the hedge to pieces for firing render it almost 

 impossible to employ it to any advantage. 



