THE SCOTS GARDENER 



hedge, as is the custom of some. Plant your hollies 

 in Aprile, and, when ready for the sheers, cut in May 

 and July therewith, and so train them close from 

 the bottome, but neither too broad nor too high. 



The hawthorn having stood two or three years in 

 the seminary, pull them up, and cut the ends of their 

 roots, and their tops within four inches of the root, 

 and plant them within the fence or back of the 

 ditches in the good earth ; delve them in spading, 

 by spading all alongst two rowes, at a foot distance, 

 standing in equilateral triangles, still thickening 

 your bordure by adding good earth, &c. Let them 

 stand three years untouched, except weeding and 

 repairing where any is dead ; then fell them with- 

 in half a foot of the ground, so will they shoot forth 

 a thicket of young shoots, which next year may be 

 train'd with the sheers as before is instructed. 



If you would plant your hedge on the face of a 

 ditch as in wet and tough grounds, then streatch 

 a line on both sides of the intended ditch, and ritt 

 with the spade alongst the same, slanting inward ; 

 for if the ditch be seven quarters wide, it must be 

 five deep, sloping to a foot in breadth at the bottom ; 

 then cut the turf or surface of your ditch, and lay 

 a gang or row of the first spading along by the brink 



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