298 THE HORNBEAM. 
to crops in its vicinity ; no doubt from its rooting and deriving 
support at a greater depth from the surface. It grows close 
and twiggy, and retains its leaves to a late period in the 
season, but not throughout the winter so universally as does 
the beech; and although it generally attains a greater height 
during the first six or eight years than that tree, yet it seldom 
forms a hedge so compact, bushy, and stout as the beech at 
that age. As an agricultural plant it is valuable for screen 
fences to shelter exposed fields. It endures a rough and 
windy situation, thrives well on the common sorts of soil, and 
on cold, clayey ground it grows quickly, particularly when 
planted closely, where it forms a thicket or a compact mass of 
spray and foliage, which admit of being confined by pruning 
to prescribed limits. It readily springs when lopped over at 
the surface, or at any height from the root. 
The seeds are formed in a small nut, and are usually ripe 
in the end of autumn. When sown immediately on becoming 
ripe they spring irregularly ; a few vegetate the first spring, 
but the principal crop the second year. The usual mode of 
treatment is to sow the seeds in spring, at: the rate of one 
bushel of clean seeds to fifty yards of a bed four feet wide ; 
the covering should be about half an inch thick. The seeds, 
thus treated, remain dormant the first year after sowing, and 
vegetate in the spring thereafter ; therefore where the ground 
is valuable, a light annual crop may be grown above the seeds 
for the first year, such as that of onion, lettuce, radish, cabbage- 
plants, etc. When the crop of hornbeam is a very close one, 
the young plants may be removed, or thinned out, and trans- 
planted when one year old; but if they are thin, and have 
sufficient space for becoming two-year seedlings, it is usual to 
allow them to remain in the seedbed until the plants are 
of that age. When lifted, the extremities of their roots 
should be pruned off, the plants should then be inserted into 
nursery lines, about sixteen inches asunder, and the plants a 
few inches apart in the lines. After two years in lines the 
plants are usually fit for hedges; and if they remain longer 
without being removed, and a greater space allowed, they are. 
