I.] 



THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 



25 



for the quick-sets love good culture as well as 

 other plants. 



44. Some people cut down again the next spring; 

 but, this is not the best way. Let the plants stand 

 two summers and three winters, and cut them all 

 close down to the ground as you can in the spring, 

 and the shoots will come out so thick and so strong, 

 that you need never cut down any more. 



45. But, you must, this year, begin to clip. At 

 Midsummer, or rather, about the middle of July, 

 you must clip off the top a little and the sides near 

 the top, leaving the bottom not much clipped ; so 

 that the side of the hedge may slope like the side 

 of a pyramid. The hedge will shoot again imme- 

 diately, and will have shoots six inches long, per- 

 haps, by October. Then, before winter, you must 

 clip it again, leaving some part of the new shoots, 

 that is to say, not cutting down to your last cut, 

 but keeping the side always in a pyramidical slope, 

 so that the hedge may always be wide at bottom 

 and sharp at the top. And thus the hedge will go 

 on getting higher and higher, and wider and wider 

 and wider, till you have it at the height and thick- 

 ness that you wish ; and when it arrives at that 

 point, there you may keep it. Ten feet high, and 

 five feet through at bottom, is what I should choose; 

 because then I h^ve fence, shelter and shade ; but, 

 in the way of fence, five feet high will keep the 

 boldest boy off from trees loaded with fine ripe 

 peaches, or from a patch of ripe water-melons ; and, 

 if it will do that, nothing further need be said upon 

 the subject! The height is not great; but, unless 

 the assailant have wings, he must be content with 

 feasting his eyes; for, if he attempt to climh the 

 hedge, his hands and arms and legs are full of thorns 

 in a moment; and he retreats as the fox did from 



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