274 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK I. environed with a hedge of Holly able to keep in any game. I have seen 

 '^""^y^*^ hedges, or, if you will, stout walls of Holly twenty feet in height, kept up- 

 right, and the gilded sort budded low, and in two or three places one above 

 another, shorn and fashioned into columns and pilasters, architectonially 

 shaped, and at due distance ; than which nothing can possibly be more 

 pleasant, the berry adorning the intercolumniations with scarlet festoons 

 and encarpa. Of this noble tree one may take thousands of them, four 

 inches long, out of the woods, (growing amongst the fallen leaves,) and 

 so plant them ; but this should be before the cattle begin to crop them, 

 especially sheep, who are greedy of them when tender : Stick them into 

 the ground in a moist season, in spring or early in autumn, especially the 

 spring, shaded (if it prove too hot and scorching) till they begin to shoot 

 of themselves, and in very sharp weather, and during our Eastern 

 Etesians, covered with dry straw or haume ; and if any of them seem 

 to perish, cut it close, and you shall soon see it revive. Of these seed- 

 lings, and by this culture, I have raised plants and hedges full four feet 

 high in four years : The lustier and bigger the sets are, the better ; and 

 if you can procure such as are a thumb's breadth thick, they will soon 

 furnish into an hedge. At Dungeness, in Kent, they grow naturally 

 amongst the pebbles upon the very beach ; but if your ground be stiff, 

 loosen it v/ith a little fine gravel : This rare hedge, the boast of my villa, 

 was planted upon a burning gravel, exposed to the meridian sun ; for it 

 refuses not almost any sort of barren ground^ hot or cold, and often 

 indicates where coals are to be dug. 



True it is, that time must bring this tree to perfection ; it does so to 

 all things else, et posteritati paiigimus. But what if a little culture about 

 the roots, (not dunging, which it abhors,) and frequent stirring of the 

 mould, double its growth ? We stay seven years for a tolerable Quick ; 

 it is worth staying thrice seven for this, which has no competitor. 



And yet there is an expedient to effect it more insensibly, by planting 

 it with the Quick : Let every fifth or sixth be a Holly-set ; they will 

 grow up infallibly with your Quick, and as they begin to spread, make 

 way for them by extirpating the White-Thorn, till they quite domineer : 

 Thus was my hedge first planted, without the least interruption to the 

 fence, by a most pleasant metamorphosis. But there is also another, not 

 less applauded, by laying along well-rooted sets^ a yard or more in length, 



