372 TREES. 



This course must be pursued every spring until the hedge is of 

 the desired height and form, which will take place in five or six 

 years. The latter time is usually required to make a perfect hedge 

 though the buckthorn will make a pretty good hedge in five years. 



This severe process of cutting off all the top at first, and annu- 

 ally shortening back half the thrifty growth of a young hedge, seems 

 to the novice like an unnecessary cruelty to the plant, and trial of 

 one's own patience. We well remember as a boy, how all our in- 

 dignation was roused at the idea of thus seeing a favorite hedge 

 " put back" so barbarously every year. But it is the "inexorable 

 must" in hedge growing. Raising a hedge is like raising a good 

 name ; if there is no base or foundation for the structure, ifc is very 

 likely to betray dreadful gaps at the bottom before it is well estab- 

 lished. In a hedge, the great and all important point is to make a 

 broad and thick base. Once this is accomplished, the task is more 

 than half over. The top will speedily grow into any shape we de- 

 sire, and the sides are pliant enough to the will of him who holds 

 the shears. But no necromancy, short of cutting the whole down 

 again, will fill up the base of a hedge that is lean and open at the 

 bottom.* Hence the imperative necessity of cutting back the shoots 

 till the base becomes a perfect thicket. 



The hedge of the buckthorn, or Osage orange, that has been 

 treated in this way, and has arrived at its sixth year, should be about 

 six feet high, tapering to the top, and three feet wide at the base. 

 This is high enough for all common purposes ; but when shelter, or 

 extra protection is needed, it may be allowed to grow eight or ten 

 feet high, and four feet wide at the base. 



In trimming the hedge, a pair of large shears, called hedge 

 shears, are commonly used. But we have found that English labor- 

 ers in our service, will trim with double the rapidity with the instru- 

 ment they call a " hook." It may be had at our agricultural ware- 

 houses, and is precisely like a sickle, except that it has a sharp edge. 



When the hedge has attained the size and shape which is finally 



* Plashing is a mode of interlacing the branches of hedges that are thin 

 and badly grown, so as to obviate the defect as far as possible. It need 

 never be resorted to with the buckthorn, when a hedge is properly trim- 

 med from the first. 



