ENCLOSING, LAYING OUT. 



21 



ought to be about fifteen inches, and the row of plants ought to 

 stand at about a foot from the edge of the bank. The plants 

 should be kept perfectly clear from weeds all 'the summer, which 

 is very easily effected by two or three hoeings. If plants be 

 plentiful, and you desire to have an extraordinary thick hedge, 

 put in two rows of plants, one row eighteen inches from the other, 

 and the plants of one row placed opposite the middle of the intervals 

 in the other row. The plants will make long and strong shoots 

 the first summer. The next spring cut them down to within an 

 inch of the ground. Go over them in June when they will have 

 made considerable shoots, and cut oiF all the shoots close to the 

 stem, except the two strongest of each plant. Let them go on 

 through another year, and these two shoots will then be about five 

 feet high. Then, in winter, take one of the shoots of each plant, 

 and plash it close to the bottom ; that is to say, bend it down 

 longwise the hedge, and give it a cut on the upper side about two 

 inches from the stem ; cut off the top of it so as to leave the re- 

 mainder a foot long ; bend it down to the ground, making it lie as 

 close as possible to the stems of the neighbouring plant, and fasten 

 it to the ground with two pegs. When you have done this all the 

 way along, there will be one plash for every interval between the 

 stems of the plants. When this is done, cut down the upright 

 shoots, which you have not plashed down, to within four inches of 

 the bottom ; cr rather, to within an inch or so of that part of the 

 stem out of which the plashed shoot issues. The next October, 

 that is to say, at the end of the fourth summer, you will have a 

 complete, efficient, and beautiful fence. This fence will want 

 topping and clipping, in order to keep it of uniform height, and 

 smooth on the sides. You may let it go to what height you 

 please ; but, in order to have a hedge thick at the bottom, you 

 must trim the hedge in such a way as for the outsides of the bottom 

 of it not to be dripped by the upper parts of the hedge. This is a 

 very important matter ; for, if the bottom of the hedge be hol- 

 low, holes are easily made in it, and it soon becomes no fence 

 at all. 



33. If the hedge be made of honey locusts, two rows of plants 

 are better than one, the distances being the same as before-men- 

 tioned. These do not do so well for plashing as the hawthorn or 

 black thorn ; but they send out numerous side-shoots, and these 

 very strong. These locusts should not be cut down till the end of 



