THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 51 



"rigorous fruit destroying climate of the Ottawa Valley, and would, I 

 vshould imagine, be the only thing likely to be useful in the great Xorth 

 West. It possesses all the requisites of a perfect hedge plant, and 

 inore too, yes more, for it produces fruit which makes excellent 

 preserves, and that surely cannot be considered indispensable in a 

 hedge plant. The requisites are perfect hardiness, thrifty growth, 

 prickly branches, sufficient strength when full grown oo turn any 

 animal, and a propensity to stool out from the crown of the plant just 

 below the ground, which so thickens the base of a well trimmed hedge 

 that the smallest pig could not crawl through, and prickly enough to 

 prevent him making tlie attempt ; and what is very important, it 

 never suckers. All these requisites it possesses, besides which, a 

 hedge of this plant presents a very agreeable appearance to the eye, 

 and when in full blossom is very much admired. It is about the last 

 thing in the garden or field to lose its leaves in the fall. There is no 

 necessity for planting in double rows, as is always done with the 

 English thorn, for every plant is capable when full grown of quite 

 filling with its numerous shoots a space of fully one foot ; but as it 

 would take ten years or more to do this, it might be advisable to plant a 

 little closer, say eight or nine inches. And with all these recommend- 

 ations it has yet another, and a very important one in the eyes of the 

 farmer, and that is, that cattle will not eat its leaves, so that it may be 

 planted out without protection. And when once planted there is no 

 trouble of renewing every third or fourth plant that may have died 

 out, because witli -anything like proper planting and care they are all 

 sure to live ; and what is more, they grow so even with one another 

 that there is very little difference between the best plant and the worst 

 Avhen of the same age. 



The plants may be propagated from cuttings or grown from seed. 

 The cuttings I have never tried, and have found it difficult to hit on 

 just the right jdan of raising from seed. The seed can be obtained 

 from some American firms at forty cents per lb., but I do not know 

 where it is to be had in Canada. The difficulty is to know when to 

 sow it. If sowed in the spring, no matter how t3arly, it will not come 

 up the same year; a little of it may start in the fall and some the next 

 spring, or not at all. If sowed late in the fall very little of it will 

 start in the spring, and the rest perhaps not at all. The best success 

 J have had was with some sowed early in Augu.st, which came up the 



