AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
79 
grou: d. When taken from the nursery, the tap¬ 
root should be cut off short, and the side roots 
shortened by a sharp knife, and set in the soil, 
perhaps an inch deeper than they stood in the 
nursery beds. 
There are two different inodes of planting the 
hedge. One is in a single line, with the plants 
nine inches to a foot apart, according to their 
size when grown. The other, and we think the 
better way, is to plant them in double rows; 
one row a foot from the other, and the plants 
eighteen inches to two feet apart in the rows. Set 
alternately against the centre of the space in the 
opposite row, thus making it thicker at the bot¬ 
tom. When planting, the tops should be cut down 
to within two or three inches of the ground, that 
a thick growth of young shoots may at once push 
out from the original stool. They must be kept 
clean and free from weeds and grass, and cul¬ 
tivated by two or three hoeings through the Sum¬ 
mer. if the season be favorable, and the plants 
well set, the growth will be one to three feet. It 
will be also understood that the young hedge is 
to be properly guarded by fence, or otherwise, 
from the depredations and tramping of large ani¬ 
mals, or they will rapidly destroy it altogether. 
The next Winter the new growth must be cut 
back within six inches of the ground, and in the 
succeeding Spring the dead or missing plants if 
any, be replaced with others as near the size of the 
standing plants as possible. The second season’s 
growth will be more vigorous than the first, and 
the next Winter they must be again cut back to 
eight inches or a foot in hight, the previous or 
second Summer’s cultivation having been like the 
first. 
“Plashing” is practiced by some hedgers. This 
is done by reserving a portion of the last year’s 
growth, anti binding them down horizontally, 
confining them by forked pins in the ground, so 
that they will throw up perpendicular shoots, and 
thicken the young wood ; but the benefits of this 
mode is doubted by some hedgers, and only 
adopted by them when the plants are originally 
planted at greater distances in the rows than we 
have named, or when missing plants can not 
readily be replaced. The third year the hedge 
will have made a sufficient hight and thickness to 
measurably protect itself. Keep the ground clean 
at the roots, as before. They may require but 
a moderate topping for future form, and growth. 
After this, circumstances must govern as to the 
management. At the end of four or five years the 
hedge ought to be sufficient not only to protect 
itself, but the fields which it encloses. 
We have written, up to this point, as if no ad¬ 
verse influences had occurred to mar our labors, 
and that the seasons had been good, the rows well 
cultivated, and no field mice, gophers, rabbits, 
or other destructive creatures had preyed upon 
the plants, which, by the way, is a fortune too 
good for expectation in a country so liable to these 
depredators as is ours. Let the material of the 
hedge be of whatever kind of plant it may, the 
process of cultivation, growth, and treatment we 
have described is pretty much the same. Yet the 
drawbacks are many, and formidable. A Western 
paper now before us, in an article on Osage 
Orange hedges remarks : “In all our travels we 
meet with the most reckless disregard of the rules 
that have so frequently been published that we 
are almost inclined to regard the whole hedge 
system in the United States as a failure ; not how¬ 
ever from any want of adaptation of the Osage 
Orange to the purpose, but from the lack of regu¬ 
lar, systematic treatment on the part of the farm¬ 
er. In all the efforts at hedge-making through- 
!)ut the west, we doubt whether there can now be 
found one rod of perfect, well-formed hedge to a mile 
that has been set, or even to five miles !’’ A most 
lamentable conclusion certainly, so far as man’s 
efforts are concerned, and for which, if men in¬ 
tend to have a hedge at all, there is not a shadow 
of excuse. Yet, the destruction by the natural 
enemies we have named oftentimes circumvents, 
and destroys the utmost painstaking of farm¬ 
ers, against which there is scarce a possible way 
to guard. 
In calculating for a hedge, therefore, the farmer 
has to take a broad survey not only of his grounds 
and locality, but the probability of the extent 
of depredation he may have to encounter from the 
vermin which are like to overrun him. Small en¬ 
closures, in thickly populated communities, are 
usually free from this sort of destruction, but he 
must arm himself with a sufficient stock of pa¬ 
tience, capital, and labor to protect and watch his 
embryo hedge for at least five years before he can 
turn it out for its own protection, and that of his 
fields. Be it Osage Orange, buckthorn, the com¬ 
mon thorn, or whatever else it may, no immunity 
is guaranteed him from the lawless depredations 
of domestic animals, or vermin, beyond what his 
own exertions can secure. Therefore the hedger 
takes his life in his hand, so far as his success in 
that particular is concerned. 
THE COST OF HEDGES. 
This must vary in different localities, and ac¬ 
cording as the plants are easy, or difficult to ob¬ 
tain. Quicks, either of the Osage, or the thorn 
of various kinds, may be grown for a dollar a 
thousand, in some places—less, or more, as 
the case may be. The proper fences may be made 
for protection while the hedge is growing suffi¬ 
ciently to guard itself for, say fifty cents a 
rod at the lowest, up to seventy-five cents or a 
dollar; and these may be removed at small ex¬ 
pense to serve a like purpose elsewhere, or for 
other uses—with some wear and tear, to be sure, 
which must be taken into the account. Then the 
annual expense of cultivation is to be counted 
until the hedge can take care of itself, so far as 
growth is concerned. It will always require an 
annual oversight, and a certain extent of labor in 
trimming and heading down to a proper hight, 
which need never be over eight, or nine feet. All 
these may vary in cost, according to circum¬ 
stances, and success in effecting the finished 
hedge, so that it is next to impossible to calculate 
the entire expense of the article complete ; and 
any estimate in dollars and cents, within a cheap 
sum, may be entirely fallacious, as so many con¬ 
tingencies may occur to thwart our calculations. 
For ourselves, we believe the cost of a well 
grown, secure hedge, may vary any where from 
two, to five dollars a rod—certainly not less than 
the one sum, nor exceeding the other. Yet, when 
it is considered that it may last a century, and 
perhaps more, the lowest sum will render it a 
very cheap fence, and for the surroundings of an 
entire farm, the highest may not be a dear one. 
But we can in this country run no sure parallel 
with England in the cost of making, and after¬ 
wards maintaining hedges. There, the hedge is 
the almost universal fence of the country ; here 
it is scarcely introduced. There, almost every 
farm laborer is more or less a hedger ; here the 
professional hedger is scarce, at quite twice the 
wages paid him at home ; and coupled with the 
additional difficulties to be encountered here in 
getting up the hedge to the secure point, the cost, 
and practicability of the work in the two coun¬ 
tries finds no approximate parallel. 
AS A THING OF TASTE, 
we might descant upon the hedge as worth the 
attention of our landscape gardeners, and design¬ 
ers for ornamental grounds, parks, and lawns 
as of our wealthy farmers and land holders 
looking, to the permanent improvement of their 
rural homes, and agricultural estates, aside from 
the question of immediate profit and utility. That 
is a question which they must settle for them 
selves. We concede the exceeding beauty of a 
country with its highways and fields hedged in 
by living, growing, green, and fragrant lines of 
vegetation, instead of unsightly stone walls, un¬ 
couth zig-zag rails, posts and boards, palings, or 
pickets, even ; but we must conform, measura¬ 
bly, to the dictates of economy, and strict immedi¬ 
ate utility, before we can warmly recommend the 
hedge to the American farmer in our present state 
of experience. 
The time may arrive when it will be his only, 
and imperative resort; and even now, in those 
broad tracts of our Western States where it is 
apparently already so, we decidedly recommend 
its trial on a moderate scale—with the full notion, 
however, that he who adopts it has got to under¬ 
take it in no half-way measure of execution, but 
take hold for its successful accomplishment, if 
success be attainable at all, and ascertain for him¬ 
self its practicability. As we have before stated, 
the whole question of American hedging is yet 
unsettled, but is certainly worth the trial, where 
other material is wanting, or is too costly. 
We have bestowed more time and space on 
this branch of our fencing economy than we at 
first intended ; hut the numerous inquiries from 
various parts of the country, which have of late 
years been started on the subject, have led us 
into a wider range of discussion than we should 
otherwise have given it. 
A Stitch in Time. 
The lengthening days and melting snows be¬ 
token the coming of Spring. Every farmer re¬ 
joices in its coming, but is every one ready for 
it I At the North little or nothing can be done in 
-working the soil, this month, except in the mat¬ 
ter of draining. But much preparation can be 
made for Spring work. Implements of all kinds 
should now be looked over and put in good re¬ 
pair. Are the plows in proper condition ; and of 
the harrows are no teeth gone and none loose 1 
The manure-forks, shovels, spades, hoes, crow- 
bars, cradles, harness, wagons, chains, are they 
all at home, under cover, and in complete order 1 
How often are tools lent to neighbors, and not 
returned till called for from necessity, and then 
are out of order and must be sent to the shop for 
repair! What a loss, then, of time and patience 
and neighborly good feeling ! 
Let us also look into the seed department. As 
grass and clover need an early start, no time 
should now be wasted in securing good seed. So 
of wheat and oats, and corn ; now is the time to 
look them over, and provide for sowing and plant¬ 
ing. Whoever has not good seed of every kind 
he expects to use, should spare no pains or money 
in securing them. It gives the cultivator no lit¬ 
tle satisfaction and self-respect to know that he 
has taken time by the fore-lock, and made all 
needful preparation for his work in advance. For 
him, as well as 'or everybody, it is a good rule to 
drive one’s business and not be driven by it —“ A 
stitch in time saves nine ”—often ninety-nine. 
It was once remarked . o the hearing of a little 
girl of thirteen, that all things came by chance, 
and the world, like a mushroom, sprang up in a 
night. “I should like to know, sir,” asled the 
child, “where the seed came from 1” 
