230 HOW TO GROW GOOD FENCES. 



will be well attained by offering prizes to nurserymen 

 for good and well-grown quicks. 



In planting hedges, then, our first care should be 

 to prepare the ground. This must be done according 

 to the soil ; and here it may be noted that there are 

 two plans of doing this most commonly used, namely, 

 raising a mound, on which the quicks are to be 

 planted without a ditch ; and the making a ditch and 

 planting the quicks on the top of the elevated soil. 

 Now, curiously enough, the first method is the one 

 usually adopted in light, porous soils, as on the sands 

 of Dorsetshire ; the second, in porous stones, where 

 ditches are not required, as in the oolitic districts ; 

 or else in clay soils, where alone the ditch is at all 

 advisable. 



"We advise that in light soils, as sandy loams, where 

 drainage is not required, the ground be well dug 

 on the flat before the planting of the quicks ; that in 

 thin soils on brashes the brash be loosened ; and 

 then that some soil be carted on this surface, making 

 an additional thickness of not more than six inches of 

 soil. As regards the preparation for a fence, by pre- 

 viously making a ditch, we object to it on account of 

 the loss of ground ; the ditch, again, if forming part 

 of the system of drainage, is always liable to become 

 choked by weeds, brambles, and the like, with water- 

 plants growing in it. Had we to begin the laying-out 

 of ground, we should make our drainage- system 

 independent of the fences ; and so, however stiff our 

 clays if well drained, we should as a rule only raise 

 the soil where a fence was to be planted, by a few 

 inches. 



"We speak the more strongly on this matter, because 



