SOIL, MANURES, SITUATION, AND ENCLOSURES. 57 



Norway spruce will also make a fine hedge-tree. It grows 

 with great vigor and may be freely shortened back. 



Probably the very best shrub for making a handsome, quick- 

 growing hedge is the California Privit (Ligustrum ovalifo- 

 lium). It can be purchased from nurserymen eighteen inches 

 to three feet high in lots of one hundred, at moderate prices. 

 Set out from ten to twelve inches apart in good soil, it will, 

 with proper cutting back each spring, form a dense hedge five 

 or six feet high in a very few years. Three lines of barbed 

 wire running through the middle will effectually prevent 

 passing through it, and at the same time be entirely con- 

 cealed. 



The following figures (some of which are produced from 

 those in Warder on Hedges) will show how 

 this, and indeed all hedges, should be sheared. 



FIG. 86. Result of Omitting to Prune. 



FIG. 87. First Year, 

 Newly Set Out. 



FIG. 88. Begin- 

 ning of Second 

 Year. 



The neglect of cutting down at the commencement causes 

 the hedge to become thin and narrow, and full of gaps at the 

 bottom where it should be the thickest ; and dense and impene- 

 trable only at the top, where this is less essential. In other 

 words, the hedge becomes wrong-side-up, or mounted on 

 stilts (Figs. 83 and 84). The appearance of the young hedge 

 just before cutting down the first time is shown at a, Fig. 85, 

 and the cut portion at b. It is almost impossible to induce a 

 novice to cut " this fine growth;" he thinks it will " ruin" his 

 young and promising fence. Yet if the work is omitted, it 

 will in a few years appear as in Fig. 86. 



The following is the regular order of working each succes- 

 sive year. Fig. 87 represents the plant the first year, or a 

 few weeks after setting out ; it has been cut down nearly to 

 the surface of the earth, the tap-root trimmed off, and the 



