THL; CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 59 



THE BEKBERRY FOR HEDGES. 



UY II. QUETTON ST. GEORGE. 



Aboiit berberry as hedge plants, I still adhete to my opiuion that 

 ultimately they are tlie best. They require a little protection from 

 cattle lot 'two or three years, principally in spring, when the teudei' 

 shoots ate greatly relished by sheep, and they come on very slow if 

 the grasses allowed to grow over their roots. After two or three years 

 the plants in orilinary soil are strong enough to defy the attacks of 

 cattle or -sheep, and the grass seems to have very little effect on them, 

 their vdCfts striking very deep in the ground. They stool very freely, 

 and if planted one foot apart very soon close so as to prevent pigs or 

 other animals from going through, whilst they interlace above so that 

 cattle cannot see daylight, and do not attempt to get over or through 

 them. They will generally attain a height of from six to seVen feet 

 in three or four years^l mean plants taken from the nursery two 

 years old. Strong suckers will often shoot as much as four feet in one 

 season. I have now several miles of them here, and prefer them to 

 any other plant for hedges in dry ground ; in low, marshy soil I found 

 they would not do. 



I have also some buckthorn, but I find it very troublesome to clip 

 their strong branches every year, and as the sheep are very fond of 

 nibbling their leaves as high as they can reach, I find it very hard 

 to ^eep them close near the ground unless they have been planted 

 v*y thick, and in that case the plants are never very strong to run 

 Up. I would say that the gt-eat points of the berberry are growing so 

 thick and strong near the ground and requiring no clipping or care of 

 «*ny kind when once well established, which takes about three years. 

 'Considering the great scarcity of timber, and the trouble and expense 

 '6f wire fences, I would strongly recommend planting berberry wherever' 

 ^he soil is not too wet. In marshy places a cedar hedge planted 

 ■alongside of a picket fence, which it soon embraces and supports, 

 flakes a very strong barriet and a most valuable screen or shelter 

 from the wind. 



As will be seen by a pel-usal of Mr. St. George's article, he claims 

 ^advantages for the berberry which cannot but induce the attention of 

 •even the most jo^ejudiced. In th^e berberry we have apirmatieni fence. 



