Sept.] FLOWER GARDEN. 5Q5 
them too close above, but clip the top off regularly to retard the 
luxuriant shoots, and cause them to branch out and thicken the 
hedge, and also to give the moderate growths an equal advantage 
of air and room to advance as equally as possible; cut the sides 
with similar care but closer, and always sloping inwards or nar- 
rowing towards the top; for by thus exposing the sides and bottom 
of the hedge to the influence of the air, rain and dews, all parts are 
equally encouraged in growth, and the whole becomes close and 
well furnished, but when the top overhangs the bottom, the lower 
branches, for want of those advantages, decay, and the hedge be- 
comes thin below, and consequently much more unfit to answer the 
end than if judiciously trained. 
Grass and Gravel- Walks, and Lawns. 
Continue to treat your grass and gravel-walks and lawns as 
directed in page 400, and let the rough edges of all grass lawns, 
&c. adjoining gravel-walks and principal borders, be cut close and 
neat with a very sharp edging iron, &c., which will give an addi- 
tional neatness and becoming appearance to the whole. 
Preparing for Planting. 
Prepare now, at all leisure hours, the different beds, borders, 
and composts for your plantations of choice tulips, hyacinths, ane- 
mones, ranunculuses, and other flower roots which are to be 
planted next month; also for the various flowering shrubs, &c. that 
the hurry of business may not press upon you too much at once, 
and that you may be the better able to do every thing in its proper 
season. 
Transplanting Evergreens. ' 
In the last week of this month, should necessity require, you may 
transplant such evergreens as seem to have ceased growing, pro- 
vided you can remove them with balls of earth, or that they are to 
be planted in shaded places; but in either case it will be necessary 
to water them occasionally in dry weather for three or four weeks 
after planting; however, if the season proves hot and dry it will be 
better to defer that work till October. 
The Vallisneria Americana. 
Some account of the Vallisneria Americana may not prove un- 
acceptable to the curious, the more especially as it tends to cast 
some light on the "foues" and sexes of plants. 
This extraordinary vegetable production grows in the river Dela- 
ware, not far from Philadelphia, and may, with care, be introduced 
by means of seeds or roots, into rivers, ponds, and canals, &c. 
Another species, the Spiralis, is found in the East Indies, in Nor- 
3Q 
