154 ON RAISING AND MANAGING HEDGES. 
ing the growth towards the strengthening of the lower 
branches, and keeping the hedge in proper shape, and the 
hedge-switcher is the most speedy and efficient implement for 
all the fences of field or forest. 
The four most important points to be attended to in the 
raising and managing of live-fences are well-prepared ground, 
well-prepared plants, thorough cleaning, and thorough fencing. 
These things attended to, hedges soon become an ornament, 
a shelter, and a sure protection. 
The practice of planting timber trees in the line of hedge 
has a very injurious effect on the fence, and seldom fails to 
produce inequalities and gaps. Some trees are less ruinous 
to underwood than others, but plants in hedges cannot 
maintain a uniform vigour and regularity of growth when 
subjected here and there not only to the shade and drop of 
taller trees, but to the exhausting influence of their roots, so 
strong and vigorous compared to those of the plants of a 
pruned hedge. The kinds of hedge plants most suitable for 
underwood are holly, yew-tree, and privet, but the thorn (or 
quick) is readily injured by being overspread by any other 
tree. 
Old thorn hedges are not unfrequently met with in a 
stunted state, entangled with weeds and full of gaps, so that to 
form a fence requires the assistance of paling. To improve 
this state of affairs the hedge should be sawn over near to the 
surface of the ground, and a yard wide of ground on each 
side should be forked over, carefully shaking out all the roots 
of weeds, after which a liberal supply of well-prepared manure 
should be dug in during autumn or in the winter months. 
Where vacant spaces exist the soil should be cast out, and a 
trench formed four feet wide and about two deep, into which 
fresh soil from the field should be deposited and well manured; 
a single or double line of thorns should then be inserted ; the 
plants should be strong and well rooted from being often 
transplanted. Such plants after being topped will yield strong 
shoots the first year. The planting of thorn should be per- 
formed in the end of the year, or in open weather in winter. 
