35S TREES. 



the chief obstacles to the progress of his laoors on the soil, must 

 needs employ for a long time, rail fences, board fences, and stone 

 walls. But in most of the Atlantic States these materials are already 

 becoming so scarce, that hedges will soon be the most economical 

 mode of enclosing grounds. In the prairie lands of the west, hedges 

 must also, from the original and prospective scarcity of timber, soon 

 be largely resorted to for all permanently divided grounds such as 

 gardens and orchards. 



Touching the charms which a good hedge has for the eye, they 

 are so striking, and so self-evident, that our readers hardly need any 

 elaborate inventory from us. That clever and extraordinary man, 

 William Cobbett, who wrote books on gardening, French grammar 

 and political economy, with equal success, said, in his usual em- 

 phatic manner, " as to the beauty of a fine hedge, it is impossible 

 for any one who has not seen it, to form an idea ; contrasted with a 

 wooden, or even a brick fence, it is like the land of Canaan com- 

 pared with the deserts of Arabia ! " 



The advantages of a hedge over the common fence, besides its 

 beauty, are its durability, its perfect protection against man and 

 beast, and the additional value ii confers upon the land which it 

 encloses. A fence of wood, or stone, as commonly made, is, at the 

 best, but a miserable and tottering affair; soon needing repairs, 

 which are a constant drain upon the purse ; often liable to be broken 

 down by trespassing Philistines ; and, before many years, decaying, 

 or so far falling down, as to demand a complete renewal. Now a 

 good hedge, made of two plants we shall recommend, will last for 

 ever ; it is an * everlasting fence," at least in any acceptation of the 

 word known to our restless and changing countrymen. When once 

 fully grown, the small trouble of annual trimming costs not a whit 

 more than the average expense of repairs on a wooden fence, while 

 its freshness and verdure are renewed with every vernal return of the 

 " flower and the leaf." 



As a protection to the choicer products of the soil, which tempt 

 the spoiler of the orchard and the garden, nothing is so efficient as 

 a good hedge. It is like an impregnable fortress, neither to be 

 scaled, broken through, nor climbed over. Fowls will not fly over 

 it, because they fear to alight upon its top ; and men and beasts are 



