THE CULTURE OF PLANTS 

 CHAPTER IV 



OF HEDGES AND INCLOSURES 



As there is no countrey can have more need of 

 enclosing than this, so none is more needful of en- 

 closing; for we well know how vain it is to plant, 

 unless we inclose. 



I spoke of brick and stone-walls ; now for hedges 

 I prefer holly and hawthorn, raised from seed, al- 

 beit there be several others. Mix not hedges, be- 

 cause strong-growers over-grow the weak; neither 

 suffer briers, brambles, docks, or thissels therein. 



Your hollies having stood two years in the semin- 

 ary, and two in the nurserie, remove them by a 

 tr o wall, or a spade, with a clod of earth at their roots, 

 croping such roots as appear without the clod with 

 a sharp knife, and lessen its head by croping the 

 side-boughes, but cut not its top ; plant it in made 

 up bordures, or at the back of ditches, at a foot dis- 

 tance, in good earth. Let them stand two years un- 

 touched, except weeded : then cut their tops at a 

 bud to make them furnish thick, and ply their side- 

 boughes to grow through one another, like slicing 

 or feathering ; and next year fall to work with the 

 sheers, cutting both sides and tops as we used to 

 do with box, &c. never supporting or binding any 



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