LIVE FENCE. 63 



end a liberal reserve of plants should be kept growing and 

 cut back in like manner with those standing in the hedge, so 

 that when one of these, for any cause, drops out or falls 

 greatly behind its neighbors, its. place may be supplied with 

 one of those of equal age and growth with the body of the 

 hedge, which have been thus reserved and trained. 



As to the time required to rear a hedge to be adequate to 

 serve as a fence, the Books speak of three or four years as 

 sufficient. That may be so in the rich soil of the West, with 

 the Osage Orange or Madura, a far more rapid and vigorous 

 grower, but which, according to the prevailing impression, is 

 not sufficiently hardy to be relied upon for this climate. But 

 with the Buckthorn, or the Acacia, which is of somewhat 

 more rapid growth, it would be idle to expect, in any aver- 

 age soil, to effect this result in less than six or eight years, 

 at the least. 



Whoever wishes to make trial of raising a hedge, can read- 

 ily do it. The plants, of either of these two kinds, are raised 

 from the seed Avith great facility. The seed should be sown 

 in well prepared soil, in drills or rows, two feet apart or 

 thereabouts, and the plants thinned out in the row, so as to 

 allow each plant left a fair opportunity for a start. If care- 

 fully cultivated through the season, the plants will be suita- 

 ble to transfer to the hedge row the next spring. When set 

 out, it is desirable that they be as nearly as possible of uni- 

 form size and strength, and be all good, strong, vigorous 

 plants. 



The bed in which the hedge row is to stand, should, of 

 course, be suitably prepared in advance. For this purpose 

 a strip of ground at least eight or ten feet in width should 

 be ploughed to a liberal depth, and, unless the soil is par- 

 ticularly good, generously enriched ; and this cultivation 

 and preparation should be continued until the soil has be- 

 come well mellowed and enriched, and as nearly as may be, 

 of uniform quality and condition along the whole line ; and 

 when the plants are to be set, a bed, say three feet in width, 

 should be spaded or otherwise thoroughly mellowed up, 

 along where they are to stand. 



CHAELES MASON. 



