SITUATION, SOIL, 



[chap. 



door in it is a protection to a house. Having got the plants ready ; 

 or, rather, befo're they be taken up out of the ground, you prepare 

 the place to receive them. You- make a ditch six feet wide, at the 

 top, and two and a half wide at the bottom. I suppose the ground 

 to be trenched to the width of eighteen feet from the wall. You 

 take all the good earth from the top of the place that is to be the 

 ditch, and lay it upon the trenched ground to the extent of two 

 feet wide, which will make a very good and deep bed of earth for 

 the plants which are to form the hedge to grow in. Then the 

 ditch ought to be dug out to the depth of three feet, and shovelled 

 out very clean and smooth at the bottom. This bottom earth of 

 the ditch must be carried away ; for it would not do to throw it 

 up into the border. If it be convenient, the slope of the bank 

 ought to be covered with turf, well beaten on, and in the autumn ; 

 because, if put on in the spring, the grass would be likely to die. 

 If not convenient to get turf, this slope ought to be thickly sown 

 with grass-seeds from a hay-loft ; and, in both cases, this slope of 

 the bank ought to be hung very regularly with dead bushes, fast- 

 ened to the bank by little pegs. This bank and ditch alone, if 

 the bushes were well hung and fastened on, would be no bad 

 protection : few boys or young fellows would venture, particularly 

 by night, to take a jump over a ditch of six feet, with about two 

 feet of elevation on the bank ; but the hedge, in addition to this 

 ditch and bank, renders the storming literally impossible, except 

 with the assistance of facines and scaling ladders, which are muni- 

 tions that the besiegers of gardens are very seldom provided with. 

 To return now to the planting of the hedge : I entirely disap- 

 prove of great numbers of plants employed for this purpose. If 

 the plants stand too close to each other, they never can be strong ; 

 they never get stout stems : the hedge is weak at bottom ; and 

 the hedge can never be what it would be if fewer and stronger 

 plants were put in. The time of planting is any where between 

 September and April. The plants, when taken up, should have 

 all their fibres taken from their roots with a short knife, and their 

 main roots shortened to the length of about six inches ; then they 

 should be planted with great caie, the earth put in very finely 

 about the roots, and every plant fastened well in the ground by 

 the foot. The eaith should be then made smooth after the tread- 

 ing, and the plants immediateiy cut down to within a foot of the 

 ground. The distance that the plants should stand from each other 



