WAY-SIDE HINTS. 135 



bear (if treated early] the closest clipping of the 

 shears. The grand error in its employment hitherto 

 has been in allowing it to gain some three or four 

 feet in height before resorting to the clipping pro- 

 cess. 



In fact, the general failure of our hedge experi- 

 ments throughout the country whether for service 

 or ornamentation may be summed up in one word, 

 a lack of care. Farmers have bought hedge-plants 

 by the thousand, and plowing a single furrow or two 

 along the lines of their fields, have set them down 

 under the absurdly ill-founded opinion, that thence- 

 forward they would take care of themselves. But 

 the young and tender hedge-plant, like the young 

 growth of corn, needs culture. And the man who is 

 too indolent or too short-sighted to bestow it, will 

 surely never reap any considerable reward. It is 

 amazing the short-sightedness which prevails in this 

 regard, not only with respect to hedging, but or- 

 charding, and tree-planting of all kinds. I count it 

 as necessary to the vigorous establishment of a newly- 

 set tree or shrub, that all foreign growth should be 

 kept away from an inclosing circle of from two to 

 four feet radius, as to bestow the like attention upon 

 a hill of corn or of melons. The little fibrous root- 

 lets, such as give nursing to the transplanted stock, 

 are as impatient of any robbery of those sources of 



