SITUATION, SOIL, CHAP. 



fore, separated a strip of the meadow from the rest by a 

 little fence, very convenient for getting over -, turned 

 this strip, which lay along against the wall, into kitchen- 

 garden ground, planted excellent fruit-trees against the 

 wall, trained them and cultivated them properly j and 

 thus, by furnishing his juvenile neighbours with onions 

 for their bread and cheese, as well as fruit for their des- 

 sert, ever after he kept the produce of the inside of 

 the garden for himself, generally observing (as he once 

 particularly did to me) that he was not so unreasonable 

 as to expect to have any of the produce of the exterior 

 garden. 



32. But there is no necessity for making these sort of 

 diversions, if you can, with the greatest ease imaginable, 

 effectually protect the fortress against every species of 

 attack. This protection is to be obtained by a hedge 

 made of hawthorn, black thorn j or, still better, with 

 honey locust, the thorns of the latter being just so many 

 needles of about an inch and a half, or two inches long, 

 only stouter than a needle and less brittle. The space 

 between the wall and the hedge ought to be a clear rod, 

 allowing, besides, three feet for the hedge. This hedge 

 ought to be planted in the following manner. The plants 

 being first sown in beds, and then put into a nursery, 

 ought to be taken thence when their stems are about the 

 thickness of the point of your fore-finger. They ought 

 to be as equal as possible in point of size ; because, if one 

 be weaker than the rest, they subdue it ; there comes 

 a low place in the hedge j that low place becomes a gap j 

 and a hedge with a gap in it, is, in fact, no fence at all, 

 any more than a wall with an open door in it is a pro- 



