CHAP. CV. CORYLA^E.K. CA r RPINUS. 2011 



put into prepared ground, and treated as for the chnnmllc ; adding : " That the 

 hornbeam may grow to your liking, you must dig it four times a year, in 

 March, May, July, and September. According as it comes up, you should 

 keep it sheared, that it may grow in the form of an even palisade ; and when 

 it is of a good height, you make use of a hook. If the palisade runs very 

 high, you should get a cart made on purpose; and the man who shears it 

 gets up in it, and is drawn by one or two horses, according as the workman 

 advances in his work." (Ibid.) A star consisted of five broad paths, with grass 

 in the middle, and gravel on each side, cut through a wood of hornbeam, and 

 radiating from a round grass-plot, surrounded by a ring of gravel. The wood 

 was generally formed entirely of hornbeam ; but sometimes the wood was of 

 other trees, and only the avenues or alleys were lined by high hedges or pa- 

 lisades of hornbeam. The goose-foot may shortly be described as half a 

 star ; three walks or alleys, corresponding to the three large ribs in the foot 

 of a web-footed fowl, radiating from one side of an oval or circle. " A laby- 

 rinth," says the author of the Retired Gardener, ?* is a place cut into several 

 windings, set off with hornbeam, to divide them one from another. In great 

 gardens, we often meet with them, and the most valuable are always those 

 that wind most ; as that of Versailles, the contrivance of which has been won- 

 derfully liked by all that have seen it. The palisades of which labyrinths 

 ought to be composed should be 10ft., 12ft., or 15ft. high : some there are 

 no higher than one can lean on, but they are not the finest. The walks of a 

 labyrinth ought to be kept rolled, and the hornbeams in them sheared in the 

 shape of half-moons." (Ibid., p. 743.) " Bosquets, or groves, are so called 

 from bouquet, a nosegay; and I believe that gardeners never meant anything 

 else by giving this term to this compartment, which is a sort of green knot, 

 formed by the branches and leaves of trees that compose it, placed in rows 

 opposite to each other. A grove, in this sense, is a plot of ground more or 

 less, as you think fit, enclosed in palisades of hornbeam ; the middle of it filled 

 with tall trees, as elms or the like, the tops of which make the tuft or plume. 

 At the foot of these elms, which should grow along the palisades at regular 

 distances, other little wild trees should be planted ; and the tuft that will by 

 this means be found in the inside will resemble that of a cope. There are 

 several ways of drawing out these groves; some in regular forms, the plots 

 being answerable to one another ; and some in irregular, or the meer effect of 

 fancy." (Ibid., p. 744.) The paths in these groves were of gravel, well rolled, 

 and kept very smooth ; or of grass, well rolled, and closely shaven, " after the 

 manner of green plots." The author of the Retired Gardener then adds: "I 

 have named a great many sorts of compartments in which hornbeam is made 

 use of; yet, methinks, none of them look so beautiful and magnificent as a 

 gallery with arches." He then gives long details for executing this work ; but 

 what we have already extracted will suffice to give an idea of the use that was 

 made of the hornbeam in geometric gardening. 



Soil and Situation. The hornbeam will succeed in any soil not too warm 

 and dry. It is naturally found on cold, hard, clayey soils, in exposed situa- 

 tions ; but it attains its largest dimensions on plains, in loams, or clays that 

 are not too rich. On chalk it will not thrive, in which respect it is directly 

 the reverse of the beech. 



Propagation and Culture. The seeds of the hornbeam ripen in October ; 

 and they are produced freely in England, but seldom in Scotland ; the bunches, 

 or cones, as they are called, which contain them, should be gathered by hand, 

 when the nuts are ready to drop out ; or they may be left on the tree till they 

 drop ; when, though a part of the seed will have fallen out, there will, in all 

 probability, be enough left for future use, the tree being at present but very spar- 

 ingly propagated in Europe. The nuts separate readily from their envelopes ; 

 aiid, if they are sown immediately, many of them will come up the following 

 spring, and all of them the second spring. If they are preserved in dry sand, 

 or in their husks, and sown the following spring, they will come up a year 

 afterwards: the usual covering is in. The plants may remain in the seed- 



