TREATISE ON 



tliink them calculated for any tiling, but a favage uncultivated 

 countrj'', where there is danger of being invaded by wild beafts, 

 whofe incurfions they might probably repel. 



Where hedges of uncommon ftrength are required, I know 

 nothing fo efFecflual as double lines, planted in the triangular 

 manner ; fo that the plants in one line may be diredlly fronting 

 the interftices of the other, whence animals attempting to force 

 their heads through any weak part of one line, are met in the 

 nofe, and repulfed by the plant oppoiite. Thefe plants too, 

 growing in concert, afford a mutual aid by flieltering each other, 

 and will for feveral years grow fafter than a fingle line. 



Standards of all kinds in hedges are highly deftrudlive, as, 

 by hanging over, they fmother the plants below, (hake them, 

 and in all refpedls rob them of much nourifliment. 



Hedges that have grown any confiderable time wild and un- 

 cultivated, muft neceffarily become ragged and open. To remedy 

 this, the common way to make them become immediately fen- 

 cible, is plafhing them ; and where they are not above ten or 

 twelve years growth, I have known fuch become tolerable 

 fences, when not too much wounded, (the common error) 

 but done with fldll and attention, being regularly clip'd after- 

 wards ; but if they are not taken about that age, the feverity of 

 the wounds, neceffary to make them comply to their proper fta- 

 tions, are fo great, that in a few years many of them die, and be- 

 coming full of gaps, are more unfightly, and lefs fencible than 

 ever ; whence the advantage is of fliort duration, and the remedy 

 becomes worfe than the difeafe. But the only method of cure 



