ON LIVE FENCES. 109 



liere I failed entirely; a hedge which I formed of this, 

 had nothing to recommend it in any way. In the year 

 1808, I happened to have some young plants which had 

 come up from the chance scattered seeds of the Ameri- 

 can buckthorn, or Rhamnus catharticus, and finding they 

 made a good growth in the nursery to which they had 

 been removed, I determined to try to form a hedge of 

 them, and I have been well pleased with the result. 

 They were set out in 1809, and very soon became a fine 

 hedge of about twenty rods in length, which has remain- 

 ed so until the present time; not a single plant having 

 failed from it, nor have I ever known it to be attacked 

 by any insect. This hedge being my first experiment 

 wdth the Buckthorn, I did not keep it headed down so 

 closely as I have since found it expedient to do, and 

 consequently it is not quite so impervious at the bottom, 

 as some of my younger hedges which have been more 

 severely pruned. Being fully satisfied that I had at last 

 found the plant 1 wanted, I have since that time set out 

 various hedges of it, at different periods, until I can now" 

 measure 160 rods of them, all, in my opinion, good 

 hedges, — and I do not hesitate to pronounce the Buck- 

 thorn the most suitable plant for the purpose that I have 

 ever met with. It vegetates early in the spring, and 

 retains its verdure late in the autumn; I have often seen 

 it green after the snows had fallen; being a native plant, 

 it is never injured by our most intense cold, and its vi- 

 tality is so great that the young plants may be kept out 

 of the ground for a long time, or transported any dis- 

 tance without injury. It never sends up any suckers, 

 nor is disfigured by any dead wood; it can be clipped 

 into any shape which the caprice or ingenuity of the gar- 

 dener may devise; and being pliable, it may be trained 

 into an arch, or over a passage way as easily as a vine; 

 it needs no plashing or interlacing, the natural growth 

 of the plants being sufficiently interwoven. It is never 

 cankered by unskillful clipping, but will bear the knife 

 to any degree; during the last winter I found one of my 

 hedges hud grown too high, casting too much shadow 

 over a portion of my garden, and wishing to try how 



