INCLOSURES 185 



— and hedges of "quicksett" were not, as I find some- 

 one assuming in an early American book on gardening, 

 so called because of being rapidly planted — quick(ly) 

 set — ^but because they were made from the "setts" of 

 "quick"; that is, the rooted shoots or suckers. As a 

 matter of fact such a hedge is not quickly set, but is a 

 laborious piece of planting — as the old writer com- 

 plains, petulantly blaming the carelessness which had 

 bestowed so misleading an appellation. 



These inclosures of hawthorn hedge were so popular 

 in England that there were men called "quickers" who 

 occupied themselves with nothing else during the win- 

 ter but setting out hedges, usually of quick but some- 

 times of other growth. They journeyed from place to 

 place, offering their services; and being experts, found 

 them in good demand. Privet was much used; but 

 as offering less secure a barrier, it was not so highly 

 thought of as the thorny haw. 



Hedges, even of thorn, would scarcely have been 

 sufficient to protect the early Americans' gardens, how- 

 ever, even if they had not taken too much time to 

 grow. So the first inclosures drawn around the fields 

 on the plantations of Virginia were probably the prim- 

 itive rail fences mentioned in another chapter. The 

 "rail, pale or fence" of the Court order of 1626, how- 

 ever, seems to offer a little problem in exactly what 

 sort of inclosure the third term indicates. Rails, we 



