256 HOW TO GROW GOOD FENCES. 



quicks, fencing with posts and rails, to guard the 

 plants as well as impound the cattle. Mending gaps 

 with thorns only aggravates the evil, as the living 

 part of the fence is so interfered with by the dead 

 matter that it grows but imperfectly, and the dead 

 materials soon rot away, leaving a greater gap to be 

 re-mended. 



"We have seen gaps tried to be repaired by old 

 quicks, but this seldom succeeds — for if they grow, 

 they are never bushy enough to be repellant ; but they 

 often die altogether, and at best with old plants, 

 young quicks will repair the mischief in less time. 



Seeing the difficulty there is sometimes in getting 

 quicks to grow well in hedge gaps, it is not uncom- 

 mon to fill up with various kinds of hedge-row plants, 

 such as hazel, whitebeam, spindle-tree, dogwood, 

 maple, &c. ; but the objection to these is, that they 

 are often not repellant in any way, and they help to 

 make weaker places broader than they found them, 

 and, indeed, ultimately get possession of the greater 

 part of the hedge-row. There is, then, nothing better 

 to mend a whitethorn hedge than quicks, and they will 

 grow if attended to for the first two or three years ; 

 but why they usually fail is, that if planted in gaps 

 they are usually closely hemmed in by old thorns, 

 or allowed to become smothered by weeds. 



With respect to very old hedges, made up of all 

 sorts of materials, we prefer cutting them down 

 about three feet from the ground, leaving all the 

 stubs to branch out, than to attempt to layer as 

 shrubs, and then the whitethorn succeeds even less 

 with plashing. Where, however, we have rough, but, 

 after all, not repellant fences, we should like to see 



