]08 ON T,TVE FKNCES. 



experiments in the formaUon of " live fences," with 

 their results, I have the pleasure to send you the follow- 

 ing statement; only premising, that I gave to each plant 

 a fair and impartial trial, and that the information I of- 

 fer, has at least, the value of actual experience. 



It is now more than forty years, since I became con- 

 vinced of the superiority, both as regards durability and 

 beauty, of live fences over any other mode of enclosure 

 in use among us, and made it my endeavor to ascertain 

 w^hat plant was best suited to the purpose. I first tried 

 the English Hawthorn, but I found it would not bear 

 our climate; the long droughts frequent in our warm 

 summers materially injure its beauty; it is often blight- 

 ed, and loses its foliage early in August, and even in 

 the more favorable seasons it assumes a wintry appear- 

 ance in September; it is disfigured by numerous dead 

 branches, which give it a ragged and unthrifty appear- 

 ance, even in its most verdant season; and is very sub- 

 ject to the attacks of the borer, by which I have known a 

 whole hedge to be destroyed. This first hedge, wdiich 

 measures about twenty rods, is still standing in my or- 

 chard, but I have long given it up as incorrigible, and it is 

 not included in the present measurement of my hedges; 

 and a second one wath which I had enclosed part of m}^ 

 garden, was only kept from decay by subsequently in- 

 terposing yoimg Buckthorn plants alternately with the 

 Hawthorns; by this means it became a good hedge; but 

 had it been all of Buckthorns it would have been still 

 better. I am so convinced of the unsuitableness of the 

 English thorn for our climate, that I would not admit 

 another hedge of it into my grounds if it could be done 

 free of expense. My next experiment was with the 

 Triple thorned Acacia; this is a very beautiful plant 

 wdien growm as an individual tree, but it did not answer 

 my expectations for a hedge; the plants ran up without 

 interlacing, and the thorns being mostly upon the upper 

 branches, the hedge was too open at the bottom to be 

 any protection to the land it enclosed; and it was be- 

 sides, too feeble a plant to bear our more severe win- 

 ters. I made my next trial with the Crab Apple, and 



