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Relative to Hedges. By Paul Cooper. 



Read December 13th, 1808. 



Woodbury, N. J. August Uh, 1808. 

 Esteemed Friend, 



At thy request I have made some additional remarks 

 on Hedges. — I was surprised to see in the transactions 

 of your society, the apple tree, and the walnut recom- 

 mended for live fences : such plants as are easily propa- 

 gated from cuttings must be preferred, I have found it 

 difficult to get the walnut to live one year after setting 

 out, the sweet gum or linn, grows fast, bears plashing 

 very well, is very easily cultivated, and makes a suffici- 

 ent fence in a few years. The sour gum in low land will 

 also in a few years make a very good fence : the white 

 mulberry, the button wood or plane tree,* grows rapidly, 

 is easily propagated from cuttings, or seeds, and makes 

 excellent fire wood equal to hickory ; this is important 

 to have growing, and to get fire wood out of our fence 

 from time to time ; in some situations and soils the 

 thorn may not be injured by insects, I would however 

 by all means make the trial. I find in some parts of my 

 farm the thorn grows very well, plants set out in 1802 

 by properly cutting the tops from year to year in order 

 to produce a sufficiency of horizontal shoots, were in 

 1807 a sufficient and handsome fence without plash- 

 ing. In other parts of the same farm, I should not have 

 a fence in twenty years of the thorn, but in this last soil 



* Plat anus occidentalis, L, 



