FENCES. 



101 



FENCES. 



Fan Palm. — See Dwarf Fan 

 Palm. 



Feather Grass. — Sllpa pennata. 

 — A beautiful kind of grass, well 

 ■worth growing to form tufts in flower 

 borders, from its feathery lightness 

 and graceful habit of growth. It 

 should be grown in light rich soil ; 

 and it is propagated by seeds, or divid- 

 ing the roots. 



Ff^dia. — Valerianece. — Horns. 

 « — F. cornucopias, formerly con- 

 sidered to belong to the genus Vale- 

 riana, is a coarse- growing, weedy- 

 looking plant, with pink flowers, and 

 curious seed-pods, shaped like the 

 figures we see of the Cornucopia, or 

 Horn of Plenty. It is an annual, 

 and the seeds only require sowing in 

 the open border. 



Fences for flower - gardens and 

 shrubberies, are either such as are in- 

 tended to be invisible, or, more pro- 

 perly, not acknowledged,-— such as 

 barriers of wire, or light iron rods, and 

 sunk fences ; or such as are intended 

 to be acknowledged, and to form part 

 of the landscape, — such as architec- 

 tural parapets and b edges. Wire 

 fences are commonly formed of light 

 iron posts or stakes, through holes in 

 which are stretched stout wires, or 

 slender iron rods ; or they are formed 

 of light iron hurdles, — that is, sepa- 

 rate iron-frames, which are placed end 

 to end, and can be removed at plea- 

 sure. In forming wire fences of stakes 

 and iron wires, there is no difficulty 

 when the line of direction is perfectly 

 straight, or consists of a number of 

 straight lines joined together; but 

 when the direction is curvilinear, 

 some attention is requisite to fix the 

 posts in such a manner as to permit 

 the wires, which pass through holes in 

 them, to be drawn quite tight. To 



F. 



[ admit of this being done, each post 

 must be fixed into a piece of wood or 

 stone, and supported by a brace on 

 . the concave side of the curve ; and 

 ■ both the block and the brace must be 

 buried so far under the soil as not to 

 be seen. Fences of this description 

 are put up in a very superior manner 

 by Mr. Porter, of Thames - street, 

 London. Iron, or wire hurdles, are 

 too well known to require description. 

 When either hurdles or fences, com- 

 posed of posts and rods of wire, are 

 intended to keep out hares and rabbits, 

 the lower parts of them, to about the 

 height of two feet, require finer wires 

 to be fixed to them, in an upright 

 direction, at about three inches apart. 



Architectural fences are used in 

 small gardens, close to the house ; 

 and they should generally be low 

 walls, of open work, in the style of the 

 architecture of the building ; and these 

 walls may have piers at regular dis- 

 tances, terminating in vases, or other 

 architectural ornaments, provided 

 these are in harmony with the house. 

 These walls, and indeed all other 

 architectural fenceB, should be varied 

 with 6hrubby plants planted against 

 them, so as to harmonise them with 

 the plants in the beds and borders 

 within. 



Hedges may either be of evergreens, 

 neatly cut, so as to form living walls 

 with standard plants at regular dis- 

 tances, to imitate architectural piers ; 

 or they may be formed of a mixture 

 of different kinds of flowering shrubs, 

 with evergreen standard low trees at 

 regular distances. No plant makes a 

 finer flower-garden hedge than the 

 box, the standards in which may be 

 formed of Cypresses, Junipers, or 

 Arbor Vitas. On a larger scale, the 

 Holly makes an excellent hedge, and 



