The Hornbeam. 



308. The use of this tree is to form lofty hedges for the 

 sheltering of kitchen gardens, and other such purposes ; 

 the wood is very close and hard, and fine grained, and is 

 sometimes used by turners for various purposes. It is also 

 very good as fuel ; but the tree rarely attains any conside- 

 rable height or bulk; and its great use is for the forming 

 of hedges ; its shoots being so slender, and so numerous, 

 that they admit of clipping like the hedges made of Haw- 

 thorn, and a hedge, if well managed, may be kept thus 

 from twenty to thirty feet high; and the leaf being very 

 beautiful, and adhering to the tree almost through the 

 winter, here is ornament as well as use. 



309. The SEED is very hard: it should be carefully 

 collected in the fall of the year, ^vhen ripe: if sown directly, 

 part of it might come up the first year ; but the best way 

 is, to keep it one year out of ground, precisely in the 

 manner directed in the case of the Ash seeds, in para- 

 graphs 107 and 108; and they should be sowed, in the time 

 and manner directed for the sowing of the Ash seeds in 

 paragraph 108, and the following. 



310. The young plants come up with two little round 

 leaves, not so big as those of the smallest of the turnips ; 

 and great care must be taken to keep them clear of weeds. 

 They do not attain the height of more than four or five 

 inches the first year, when they ought to be moved into the 

 nursery, in the manner directed for the Ash. They ought 

 to stand in the nursery two years; for they are but slow 

 growers at first. They are to plant as hedges, or as inde- 

 pendent ornamental trees. If the latter be intended, they 

 should have the ground well trenched for them, and made 

 rather good. There ought to be two rows of plants to form 

 the hedge, if it be intended to become lofty ; the plants 



