g-bill. They
will, without compunction, switch a young hedge at the end of the
first year of its existence. No hedge ought to be touched with a
knife until it has attained at least two years; because the great
object to be attained by a new hedge is the enlargement of its roots,
that they may search about freely for its support; and the only way
it has of acquiring large roots is through its branches and leaves,
which are the chief means of supporting the healthy functions of
plants, or of even preserving them in life. Even beyond the age
mentioned above, the pruning-knife should be very sparingly used,
until the young hedge has acquired the height sufficient for a fence;
and not freely then, but only to remove superfluities of growth, and
preserve equality in the size of the plants.

* * * * *

Let the plant have peace to _grow_ till it has acquired a
considerable degree of natural strength--to acquire which state it
will take a longer or shorter time according to the circumstances in
which it is placed--acquiring it in the shortest time in deep sandy
loam, the most _useful_ of all soils, and taking the longest in poor
thin clay on a tilly subsoil--let it, I say, have peace to _grow_,
and let it be afterwards judiciously pruned, and I will give you the
assurance of experience, that you will possess an excellent fence and
a beautiful hedge in a much shorter time than the usual practice of
hedgers will warrant."--(Vol. ii p. 564.)

Upon cutting down hedges the following remarks are excellent:--

"Hedges are wofully mismanaged in the cutting in many parts of the
country. Without further consideration than saving the expense of a
paling to guard a new-cut-down hedge, or in ignorance of the method
of making a dead-hedge from the refuse of the old, the stems of an
_old_ hedge are often cut over about three and a half feet high, to
continue as a fence. The consequence is just what might be
anticipated from a knowledge of the habits of the thorn, namely, a
thick growth of young twigs where the hedge was cut over, the
ultimate effect of which is, a young hedge standing at three and a
half feet above the ground upon bare stakes. The wise plan,
therefore, to preserve the value of the old hedge is to cut it near
the ground, a