After three or four years, if the growth be sufficiently strong, the young hedge may be trimmed to a desired shape with the shears or the hook; but if weak and straggling, we would strongly recommend that the whole be boldly cut off within a few inches of the base, the ground to be well dug and even manured about the roots, and the protecting railings to be put in order, and a new growth be waited for, which, generally speaking, will not be long—for by this means we believe that a good fence will be sooner arrived at than by allowing weak wood to go on growing still weaker.

Hawthorn fences are sometimes allowed to get several feet high before being brought into reasonable dimensions, in which case they get smooth, unarmed, and unbranched stems at the base. This state of things is too often attempted to be cured by cutting out a quantity of the wood and laying the rest, by partially dividing them near the ground—a plan which is called “plashing.” This we think highly objectionable: it would be far better to cut off the whole to within a few inches of the ground, and so trim the shoots as they grow again.

The truth is, that plashing gets out of order, the layered sticks get out of place, and the whole is aided by stakes of dead wood, which soon decay, or, if not, are almost certain to be removed by the constant country claimants to dead sticks in general.

We prefer that no dead materials should be put to a living fence; for if there are gaps, it will be best to dig the ground well and put in some young quicks, fencing with posts and rails, to guard the plants as well as impound the cattle. Mending gaps with thorns only aggravates the evil, as the living part of the fence is so interfered with by the dead matter that it grows but imperfectly, and the dead materials soon rot away, leaving a greater gap to be re-mended.

We have seen gaps tried to be repaired by old quicks, but this seldom succeeds—for if they grow, they are never bushy enough to be repellant; but they often die altogether, and at best with old plants, young quicks will repair the mischief in less time.

Seeing the difficulty there is sometimes in getting quicks to grow well in hedge gaps, it is not uncommon to fill up with various kinds of hedge-row plants, such as hazel, whitebeam, spindle-tree, dogwood, maple, &c.; but the objection to these is, that they are often not repellant in any way, and they help to make weaker places broader than they found them, and, indeed, ultimately get possession of the greater part of the hedge-row. There is, then, nothing better to mend a whitethorn hedge than quicks, and they will grow if attended to for the first two or three years; but why they usually fail is, that if planted in gaps they are usually closely hemmed in by old thorns, or allowed to become smothered by weeds.

With respect to very old hedges, made up of all sorts of materials, we prefer cutting them down about three feet from the ground, leaving all the stubs to branch out, than to attempt to layer as shrubs, and then the whitethorn succeeds even less with plashing. Where, however, we have rough, but, after all, not repellant fences, we should like to see them re-planted, by which they could mostly be curtailed, and at the same time opportunity may be taken to get rid of some of them altogether, or to make them in a more convenient direction.

We are now in possession of a hedge composed of everything but hawthorn, and somewhere about twelve feet high. It is without gaps, but still pregnable at any point, by reason of the want of armature in the shrubs of which it is composed. Still, as it stands on the top of a bank five feet high, the mound and hedge together is not so bad a fence as its materials might warrant.

We here give a list of the plants of which this fence is composed, in order to the more clear explanation of what is to follow:—

PLANTS IN A HEDGE AT BRADFORD ABBAS, ON THE INFERIOR OOLITE.
Parts.
Ash4 -The whole intermixed with long climbing brambles and straggling briars, and the bank covered with the usual hedge-row weeds.
Hazel20
Cornel10
Spindle-tree12
Blackthorn6
Maple20
Mealy Guelder Rose5
Clematis2
Elder3
Elm3
Whitethorn2