102 A DISCOUKSE 



BOOK II. as miicli on the other side, of the same depth, lieight, and planting ; and • 

 ^"^1^^ then, last of all, cap the top in pyramis with the worst, or bottom of the 

 ditch. Some, if the mould be good, plant a row or two on the hedge, or 

 very crest of the mound, which ought to be a little flattened. Here also 

 many set their dry hedge ; for hedges must be hedged till they are able 

 to defend and shade their under plantation, and I cannot reprove it : but 

 great care is to be had in this work, that the main bank be well footed, 

 and not made with too sudden a declivity, which is subject to fall in 

 after frosts and wet weather, and this is good husbandry for moist 

 grounds ; but where the land lies high, and is hot and gravelly, I pre- 

 fer the lower fencing ; which, though even with the area itself, may be 

 protected with stakes and a dry hedge on the foss-side, the distance 

 competent, and to very good purposes of educating more frequent tim- 

 ber amongst the rows. 



Your hedge being yet young, should be constantly weeded two or 

 three years, especially before Midsummer, of Brambles, the great Dock, 

 Thistle, &CC. though some admit not of this work till after Michaelmas, 

 for reasons that I approve not. It has been the practice of Hereford- 

 shire, in the plantation of quickset-hedges, to plant a Crab-stock 

 at every twenty feet distance ; and this they observe so religiously, as if 

 they had been under some rigorous statute requiring it : and by this 

 means they were provided in a short time with all advantages for the 

 graffing of fruit amongst them, which does highly recompense their in- 

 dustry. Some cut their sets at three years' growth, even to the very 

 ground, and find that in a year or two they will have shot as much as 

 in seven, had they been let alone. 



When your hedge is now of near six years' stature, plash it about 

 February or October ; but this is the work of a very dexterous and skilful 

 husbandman ; and for which our honest countryman, INIr, Markham, 

 gives excellent directions ; only I approve not so well of his deep cut- 

 ting the stems, if it be possible to bend them, having suffered in some- 

 thing of that kind. It is almost incredible to what perfection some have 

 laid these hedges, by the rural way of plashing, better than by clipping ; 

 yet may both be used for ornament, as where they are planted about our 

 garden-fences, and fields near the mansion. In Scotland, by tying the 

 young shoots with bands of hay, they make the stems grow so very close 



