178 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



his hedges not trespass -proof. 1 Hull, or hulver, are 

 old names for the holly, a plant no less prickly 

 than the bramble, and a quaint old black-letter 

 treatise tells us that " this bushe hyght Rubus 

 groweth in barreyne londe, and is beste to close 

 gardens, for the thycknes of multytude of pryckes 

 letteth 2 and holdeth out men and beastes." Small 

 boys intent on bird's-nesting will no doubt also have 

 noticed that " it defendeth foules that make their 

 nestes therein, as it were swerdes." To grow the 

 blackberry successfully in one's garden the ground 

 must not be enriched with the ordinary dressings, 

 but the sucker should be planted in good mould 

 and decayed leaves. 



The gardeners here and in the United States have 

 taken the blackberry in hand. The kind known 

 as Wilson, Jr., grows very strongly, is extremely 



1 Melton, in his " Astrologaster," published in 1620, moralises 

 on divers plants he encountered, and tells us how " the 

 Bramble, as I walk'd by, scratcht me by the Legges, which 

 put mee in minde of a griping Lawyer that never meetes 

 with Clyent but hee will be sure to fleece him, if hee doe not 

 flea him." 



2 This letting is the old sense of the word and diametri- 

 cally opposite to its modern use. It is equivalent to hindering. 

 Thus the Prayer Book speaks of those who are u sore let and 

 hindered," and our old author goes on to describe how 

 4i Rubus also is darke and shadowy by reson of hys thyckenes 

 and lettethe the passage in of the sonne beame by the thicknes 

 thereof." One inconvenient result of this is that " it is there- 

 fore frende to adders and to other creeping wormes." 



