570 
PREPARATORY OPERATIONS IN FORMING A GARDEN. 
it has been performed on a principle which 
cannot be too highly denounced ; I mean that 
of cutting off the under twigs, whilst the 
higher branches are left to overhang the roots 
of the hedge, and ultimately ruin the fence. 
The operation of scouriug should be com- 
menced about the third year after planting 
the hedge. This will be found requisite, as 
the continual cleaning and the abstraction of 
weeds have a tendency to bare the roots of 
the plants, and consequently retard their 
growth. This operation should be very judi- 
ciously performed. Too much earth should 
not be laid upon the roots ; neither should the 
mould be built too high up in the stems, other- 
wise the hedge will be retarded in its growth. 
Now as to the cutting of hedges — an opera- 
tion which, I hope, will ultimately pass into 
oblivion. If new hedges are made, and at- 
tended to properly, prizes for hedge-cutting 
will rank among the things that have been. 
In the present state of hedges in general, that 
is certainly a very useful art, without the exe- 
cution of which most of our old hedges would 
cease to be fences at all. It is also an art in 
which great competition has been exhibited. 
Hedge-cutting is now done in a very dexterous 
and scientific way. The upward and clean 
stroke of the knife or axe, the uniform and 
straight surface of the remaining stems, after 
the cutting, is certainly a great improvement 
on the downward and uncertain blow, the jagged 
cuts, the varied and zigzag form of the old 
method of cutting. I have endeavoured by 
experience to ascertain the best time for 
cutting old hedges, in order to secure the 
quickest growth, which is a very desirable 
object ; and I have found that those cut from 
about the middle of February to the end of 
March have shot away again most vigorously, 
whilst those cut from November to the be- 
ginning of February have been much more 
tardy in shooting forth, and produced shoots 
neither so strong nor so numerous. In those 
cases the hedges were much the same in ap- 
pearance and age previous to cutting. I am 
therefore determined to confine the time of 
cutting, in future, from the beginning of Feb- 
ruary to the end of March, or to cut as nearly 
as possible to the rising of the sap, and then the 
cuts or wounds have not so long to struggle 
with the inclemency of winter storms. 
Hedges should never be planted around the 
stack-yard. This ought always to be fenced 
with a stone wall. Hedgerow trees ought 
never to be planted in thorn fences. No- 
thing is more destructive to their growth ; 
neither is anything more prejudicial to the 
adjoining crops. 
Mr. Martinson, in the remarks above quoted, 
has taken a very straightforward view of the 
question. 
PREPARATORY OPERATIONS IN FORMING 
A GARDEN. 
We allude mainly to small gardens, such as 
those held by cottagers; the preparatory opera- 
tions necessary in their formation are fencing 
and draining. Neither of these operations 
ought, however, to fall to the lot of the occu- 
pier of a small garden, for both should be done 
on a general plan at the expense of the pro- 
prietor of the ground. It will be desirable, 
however, to show how these matters should be 
performed, since it not unfrequently happens 
that cottagers become the life holders of en- 
closed plots of waste land, in a way which 
entails all the preparation of their gardens on 
themselves. 
Fencing. — Various forms of fence may be 
employed. If the garden stands separate 
from all other enclosed land, a hedge and out- 
side ditch are sufficient, and the most suitable 
means of protection ; but when several gar- 
dens join each other, additional partition fences 
may be formed by driving stakes crossways in 
the ground, or by any light paling. If again, 
as in the case of allotments, a partition only 
is necessary to mark out the several holdings 
or portions, a pathway is as good as anything. 
Open drains, as a mode of division, are a 
waste of ground, for their office in other re- 
spects can be fulfilled perfectly by covered 
drains, which leave the surface available for 
cropping. When the gardens adjoin the 
cottages, and are separated by independent 
fences, much space is often unnecessarily lost 
by forming the hedges too wide, and some- 
times adding a wide ditch also. The ditch 
might generally be replaced with advantage, 
by an underground drain, and thus this space 
would be saved, or rather gained. Then a 
wide hedge might generally give place to a 
narrow one, with equal security to the garden 
crops ; for it is not a wide, but a close com- 
pact hedge, that affords the most complete 
protection. Wide hedges, again, much more 
than narrow ones, afford shelter and protection 
to snails, slugs, and vermin of this class, 
which come forth in the night, and often do 
much injury to the crops. The whitethorn, 
or quickset, forms the best of all hedges, or 
live fences as they are termed, as it may be 
kept so close as to be impenetrable, to occupy 
little space, and scarcely to afford any shelter 
to vermin, and to the weeds which soon 
establish themselves in neglected hedges, 
scattering their seeds from thence over the 
whole garden. This neglected state of the 
fences should never be permitted. The hedge 
itself should from the first be kept constantly 
closely trimmed, so as to form an impenetrable 
thicket ; the natural character of the plant is 
to grow up, and if neglected a hedge soon 
