$ THE GARDEN BOOK OF CALIFORNIA 



the other hand many of them will be induced to give up the 

 extra strip of land the hedge exacts, and to cheerfully me^t 

 the extra expense of putting in and maintaining the same, 

 when they fully come to realize that protection means a great 

 deal to the growing crops and that rightly selected hedges 

 planted in the right places, and maintained in a proper way, 

 will increase the crops protected by it and insure better 

 growth in every way. 



I am interested in the English use of hedges as screens. 

 The Englishman's idea of utility enters into the plan of 

 his entire estate, and the fact that a kitchen-garden is 

 necessary to the success of his establishment does not mean 

 by any means that the kitchen-garden shall obtrude upon 

 the vision of the guest in his drawing-room; therefore the 

 kitchen-garden is properly screened from view, from the 

 house and other portions of the grounds, by means of a 

 hedge. 



This same theory applies throughout the plan, and the 

 result is a degree of privacy for every portion of the estate 

 and for the toilers upon it, and there is, besides, a decided 

 addition to the landscape, as well as a blotting out of all 

 undesirable features. 



Why, even on the small city lot, must we gaze, and 

 gaze, and gaze, year in and year out, at the decidedly un- 

 attractive lines of our own, or our neighbor's small wooden 

 barn or outhouses, when the throwing up of a screen in the 

 way of a hedge or fence covered with vines will blot out the 

 ugly thing from our vision, and we need not recall its pres- 



[80] 



