HOW TO GROW GOOD FENCES. 227 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



ON THE REARING AND PLANTING OE HEDGES. 



The rearing of plants for hedges is a matter of so 

 much importance that one can well understand how 

 it has come to be a business of itself ; and as it is 

 better that it should be so, both landlords and tenants 

 will do rightly to encourage its being done well. If, 

 then, we take it for granted that the whitethorn is 

 the best hedge-plant, it will be best to inquire— as a 

 contribution to the science of the subject — whether 

 there are not some important varieties of this plant ; 

 if so, we should determine which is the best, and 

 encourage its cultivation. As the case at present 

 stands, nurserymen take no pains in the matter ; they 

 usually employ children to collect the "haws" — the 

 name by which the fruits are known— and it is a 

 matter of perfect indifference where or how they 

 obtain them. 



Now, as regards the common hawthorn, experience 

 has taught us that seeds obtained from trees in cold, 

 wild, stony places, such as have established them- 

 selves about old quarries on the Cotteswold-hills, 

 more quickly make good plants than those from the 

 pampered hedge-row in the deep vale-lands. 



But, in addition to this, having some years ago 

 observed that certain whitethorn-trees came into 

 flower a full fortnight before others, and this on the 

 cold forest-marble clays in the exposed country of 



