32 



REPORT ON HEDGES. 



The Committee on Hedges have a very agreeable duty assigned 

 them. One needs not ask for a more pleasant occupation on one 

 of our sunshiny days, in the bright month of October, when the 

 rich hues of autumn begin to tint the foliage, than occasionally to 

 pass an hour in wandering over grounds well disposed in gardens 

 and lawns, with clumps of trees and flowers and a border of green 

 hedge. 



There are hedges of buckthorn, presenting, in the summer 

 months, a dense and impenetrable mass of leaves, "on which the 

 eye pauses to gaze with peculiar delight, unwilling to turn away. 

 Of these no better specimen can be any where found, than one 

 belonging to Dea. Martin Marsh, of Dedham, though not of suffi- 

 cient length to compete for a premium of the Society. No hedge 

 of buckthorn has this year been entered for examination, and only 

 one of arbor vitse. 



Your Committee, last year, dwelt at some length on the beauty 

 and advantages of hedges composed of different materials, and 

 they will now only express the wish that they may be extensively 

 cultivated, both for ornament and use. It is well to bestow some 

 thought on the embellishment of grounds, thus opening new 

 sources of pleasure of a pure, tranquil and elevating character. 

 Let the air, if possible, come to us loaded with fragrance, and 

 while we inhale its invigorating draughts, let the eye rest on colors 

 and forms of beauty, exhibiting all the delicate pencillings of light 

 and shade which mark the seasons and hours, and the perpetually 

 occurring changes in the surrounding atmosphere. 



Last winter, in this vicinity, proved somewhat unfriendly to hedg- 

 es, particularly the arbor vita). It is singular that a plant, Avhich 

 is indigenous so far north — which is found in perfection in the for- 

 ests of New Hampshire and Maine — should not be hardy enough 

 to bide the severity of our winters. But some of our winter or 

 spring winds, the latter especially, as observation teaclies, prove 

 terribly blighting, even to trees which are native to our soil, pai'- 

 ticularly such as stand on the borders of woods, or where tliey are 



