Deciduous Hinds

Hawthorn; Blackthorn; Crab; Elder; Hornbeam; Beech; Elm; Lime-tree, and Alder are all proper, either for middling or tall hedges, as they may be trained up from about six or eight to fifteen or twenty feet high, and the elm to double that height if required. Privet is also sometimes used for moderately high hedges; and for low hedges, the Rose; Sweet-briar; Syringa; and Berberry.

All full trained hedges, in order to preserve them in proper form, close and neat, must be clipped, both on the sides and top, once or twice a year, but never less than once; and the best time of the year for this work is summer, from about the middle or latter end of June to the end of August, for then the hedges will have made their summer shoots, which should always, if possible, be clipped the same season while in leaf, and before the shoots become hard, whereby you will be able to perform the work more expeditiously and with greater exactness, for regular hedges should be cut as even as a wall on the sides, and the top as straight as a line; observing, after the hedge is formed to its proper height and width, always to cut each year's clipping nearly to the old of the former year. particularly on the side; for by no means suffer them to grow above a foot or two wide, nor suffer them to advance upon you too much at top, where it is designed or necessary to keep them to a moderate height.

But to keep hedges in perfectly good order, they should be clipped twice every summer; the first clipping to be about midsummer, or soon after, when they will have made their summer shoots; and as they will shoot again, what may be called the autumn shoot, the second clipping is necessary towards the middle or latter end of August, and they will not shoot again that year. However, when it does not suit to clip them but once in the summer, the clipping should not be performed until the beginning of August, for if cut sooner they will shoot again, and appear al-most as rough the remainder of the summer and all winter as if they had not been clipped. Very high hedges are both troublesome and expensive to cut. The clipping is sometimes performed by the assistance of a high machine, scaffolding or stage, twenty or thirty feet high or more, having platforms at different heights for the men to stand upon, the whole made to move along upon wheels; it is composed of four long poles for uprights, well framed together, eight or ten feet wide at bottom, narrowing gradually to four or five at top, having a platform or stage at every seven or eight feet high, and one at the top of all; and upon these the man stands to work, each platform having a rail waist high to keep the man from falling; and a sort of a ladder formed on one side for the man to ascend, and at bottom four low wheels to move it along; upon this machine a man may be employed on each stage or platform, trimming the hedge with shears, and sometimes with a garden hedge bill fixed on a handle five or six feet long, which is more expeditious, though it will not make so neat work as cutting with shears.

A hedge is not only an imperfect screen, but in other respects is worse than useless, since nothing can be trained to it, and its roots exhaust the soil in their neighborhood very considerably; as the south fence of a garden it may be employed, and hawthorn is perhaps the worst shrub that could be made use of. It is the nursery of the same aphides, beetles, and caterpillars, that feed upon the foliage of the apple and pear, from whence they spread to the trees nearest the hedge, and finally overrun the whole garden; evergreen are better than deciduous hedges, and more especially the holly, which is not so slow a grower as is generally imagined.

In a cloudy day in April or May, the wind seems to be actually refrigerated in passing through a thick hawthorn hedge, and this may be accounted for on the same principle that cool air is obtained in the houses of India, by sprinkling branches of trees with water in their verandas. Holly, laurel, and most evergreens, exhale but little moisture from their leaves, except for about a month in June, consequently in April and May, when we most require warmth, and in September and October, the leaves of these, when fully exposed to the sun become heated to the touch to 85° or 90°. Added to this, hoar frost or a deposition of moisture of any kind never attaches so readily or remains for so long a time upon the foliage of evergreens as upon the sprays of deciduous shrubs, consequently the refrigeratory power is greatly diminished. When the garden is of considerable extent, three or four acres and upwards, it admits of cross-walls or fences for an increase of training surface and additional shelter.

Hedges should always be clipped into a conical form, as the diminution of the branches towards the top increases their developement at the bottom.

Furze makes one of the best and handsomest of hedges, if kept regularly clipped. Upon the formation of such a hedge, we have the following remarks by Mr. McI. of Hillsborough: -

"The most ancient and perhaps the most simple of all fences are walls made of turf. These walls, however, are much injured by the atmosphere, and the rubbing and butting of the cattle. To guard against this they should be planted or sown with the Ulex Euro-pceus or Furze. The roots of this plant will soon penetrate the turf, and tend to bind the wall. The plants not only afford shelter as well as food for the cattle, but add to the height of the wall and give it a formidable appearance. When walls are made for this, the foundation should be three feet wide, and tapering to fifteen inches at top. As the plants advance in growth, they should be regularly trimmed with the shears; by proper attention to this they will be prevented from growing too tall and thin at the bottom. If this is annually repeated, the plants will be longer preserved in a healthy and vigorous state; clipping has also a good effect in checking the furze from spreading over the field. A good and substantial fence may thus be quickly formed over on a soil that will not produce a biding fence of any other kind.

"Sweet Briar (Rosa Rubiginosa) makes a good hedge. Its heps may be sown in the autumn, as soon as ripe, or, which is better, in the month of March, having kept them in the mean time mixed with sand. But it is far more convenient to buy for sweet briar layer young plants from the nurserymen, and to plant them a foot apart early in the month of November. Let them grow as they like the first year, and cut them clown to the ground the second, they will then spring up and require no more future care, than occasional trimming with the pruning knife or shears so as to keep the hedge in shape. When it gets naked at the bottom, it must be again cut down." - Gard. Chron.

The Laurustinus, Phillyrea, Laurel, Furze, etc, referred to in the foregoing article, are not sufficiently hardy to resist the winter of the middle states, and some of them would, it is presumed, scarcely withstand the sun of the Southern. For ornamental hedges it is safer to rely on the red and white Cedar, Chinese and American Arborvitae, Juniper, American Holly, Variegated Euonymus, Hemlock Spruce, etc. For purposes of protection the Madura or Osage Orange is unquestionably the best, wherever it can sustain the winter - which it is able to do so far North as New York. The Buck Thorn (Rham-nus catharticus) has been highly recommended, more especially for colder climates. The English method of planting on an elevated bank with ditch on one or both sides, is inapplicable to this country, where excess of moisture is seldom felt: in other respects the mode of treatment detailed in the preceding article may be pursued in this climate.

For an interesting paper on this subject see Downing's "Horticulturist".