On Fences. 
219 
allow of its being trimmed with a hedge-bill. I have been long 
anxious for such an opportunity as the present to enforce the neces- 
sity of taking the management of fences out of the hands of igno- 
rant though well-meaning labourers, who have little idea of beauty 
and order, and who are very unfit to perform the nice operation of 
managing hedges. But the question is, who eLse are to look after 
them ? Gardeners are not always on the spot, and even if they 
were, a great many of them are void of education on this head, and 
I may add, as careless as labourers. I have no doubt that the im- 
pulse gi\en to a better system of hedge-fencing by the Koyal 
Agricidtural Society, will in the course of a few years lead to the 
introduction all over the country of regularly trained hedgers, 
whose sole business will be to manage the fences upon an estate. 
In Berwickshire this class of men is as well known as that of gar- 
deners ; and throughout many parts of Scotland, even as far north 
as Moray and Inverness, the office of a hedger is quite common. 
I do not mean to say that every farmer should have a man set 
apart to take charge of the fences upon his land ; but it is quite 
clear that if they were kept on all large estates, the influence of 
example, seen in well-kept fences, would soon beget a desire in 
others to imitate such patterns. A holly hedge is considered at 
maturity when it reaches the height of six feet, beyond wliich it 
should not be allowed to grow, unless in special cases ; for if 
higher the expense of clipping is very much increased. It should 
be perfectly straight, broad at bottom, and gradually tapering to 
the top, somewhat in the shape of a nrrrow letter A. The time 
for clipping is October, and it is not necessary that this should be 
performed oftener than once every year. 
33. Cleaning. — This is all-important in hedge fencing, as it is in 
every other department of agriculture. Hedge fences are too 
often nurseries for weeds, which are allowed to ripen their seeds, 
ready at all seasons to be disseminated throughout the adjacent 
fields. I need scarcely add that the soil, of itself, will no more 
produce weeds than it will in like way produce foreign timber 
trees, so that, if every one would be careful to cut them off before 
they got to maturity, we should have much less labour and trouble 
in cleaning. Not one man in twenty understands what it is to hoe 
and rake the ground in perfection, for, according to the present 
practice of those who presumptuously call themselves gardeners, 
at least one fourth part of the weeds are allowed to remain un- 
touched, and very generally to ripen and disseminate their seeds. 
Holly hedges are much easier to keep free from weeds than any 
other sort of fence, on account of the plants growing so close to the 
surface of the soil, and thus choking the herbage. Few or no 
weeds will be found under the hedge, but the outsides should of 
course be kept as clean as that which is shaded by the branches. 
