136 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



sustenance, which find their way through the ground, 

 as the annual plants. We should have heard far less 

 lament in this country over the failure of hedges if 

 there had been more considerate treatment of them 

 during the early years of their establishment. 



If this careful nurture be requisite in respect to 

 stock from the nurseries, it is ten-fold more important 

 with respect to young plants transferred directly from 

 the forest. Scores of failures I have known on the 

 part of those, who being delighted with the appear- 

 ance of some lusty screen of hemlocks have under- 

 taken to rival it by direct transfer of the wild growth 

 to some lean streak of plowed land, and have there- 

 after left the shivering field-pensioners to struggle for 

 themselves. The half would very likely or very prop- 

 erly die ; the rest maintain only a meagre semblance 

 of life, and show none of that rampant vigor which is 

 essential to the beauty of a hedge. Indeed, except in 

 fully kept garden-ground, I would advise no one to 

 make this direct transfer. A season or two in the 

 nursery rows develops an enormous stock of rootlets, 

 and thereafter, with ordinary care, every plant may 

 be counted on. 



I doubt very greatly the serviceableness of any of 

 the evergreen hedges for farm purposes ; both the 

 hemlock and Norway spruce, for full development, 

 demand considerable width, more than would be con- 



