ENCLOSING, LAYING OUT. 



ion to a house. Having 'got the plants ready -, or, 

 r, before they be taken up out of the ground, you 

 repare the place to receive them. You make a ditch 

 six feet wide, at the top, and two and a half wide at the 

 bottom. I suppose the ground to be trenched to the 

 width of eighteen feet from the wall. You take all the 

 good earth from the top of the place that is to be the 

 ditch, and lay it upon the trenched ground to the extent 

 of two feet wide, which will make a very good and deep 

 bed of earth for the plants which are to form the hedge 

 to grow in. Then the ditch ought to be dug out to the 

 depth of three feet, and shovelled out very clean and 

 smooth at the bottom. This bottom earth of the ditch 

 must be carried away j for it would not do to throw it up 

 into the border. If it be convenient, the slope of the 

 bank ought to be covered with turf, well beaten on, and 

 in the autumn -, because, if put on in the spring, the 

 grass would be likely to die. If not convenient to get 

 turf, this slope ought to be thickly sown with grass seeds 

 from a hay-loft ; and, in both cases, this slope of the 

 bank ought to be hung very regularly with dead bushes, 

 fastened to the bank by little pegs. This bank and ditch 

 alone, if the bushes were well hung and fastened on, 

 would be no bad protection : few boys, or young fellows, 

 would venture, particularly by night, to take a jump over 

 a ditch of six feet, with about two feet of elevation on 

 the bank -, but the hedge, in addition to this ditch and 

 bank, renders the storming literally impossible, except 

 with the assistance of facines and scaling ladders, which 

 are munitions that the besiegers of gardens are very 

 seldom provided with. To return now to the planting 



