ON THE REARING AND PLANTING OF HEDGES.
The rearing of plants for hedges is a matter of so much importance that
one can well understand how it has come to be a business of itself; and
as it is better that it should be so, both landlords and tenants will do
rightly to encourage its being done well. If, then, we take it for
granted that the whitethorn is the best hedge-plant, it will be best to
inquire—as a contribution to the science of the subject—whether there
are not some important varieties of this plant; if so, we should
determine which is the best, and encourage its cultivation. As the case
at present stands, nurserymen take no pains in the matter; they usually
employ children to collect the “haws”—the name by which the fruits are
known—and it is a matter of perfect indifference where or how they
obtain them.
Now, as regards the common hawthorn, experience has taught us that seeds
obtained from trees in cold, wild, stony places, such as have
established themselves about old quarries on the Cotteswold-hills, more
quickly make good plants than those from the pampered hedge-row in the
deep vale-lands.
But, in addition to this, having some years ago observed that certain
whitethorn-trees came into flower a full fortnight before others, and
this on the cold forest-marble clays in the exposed country of North
Wilts and south of Cirencester, we were induced to examine this tree
more closely; and the result of the inquiry was to induce a belief that
this is a much hardier, quicker, and more certain growing plant for
hedge-rows than the commoner form.
With these views established in our mind, we were not a little pleased
to find that in the beautiful new edition of “English Botany,” by the
accomplished editor, J. T. Syme, Esq., F.L.S., &c., figures and
descriptions are given of the two forms; and we here reproduce in
opposite columns the descriptions referred to with a figure of the early
form we have mentioned, that our readers may compare it with the common
whitethorn:—
_Cratægus oxyacantha._
/—————————————————^——————————————————\
_Cratægus oxyacanthoides_ _Cratægus monogyna_
(_Glabrous Whitethorn_). (_Common Whitethorn_).
Plate CCCCLXXIX. (E.B.) Plate CCCCLXXX. (E.B.)
Leaves obovate or rhomboid- Leaves rhomboidal or rhomboidal-
obovate, with 3 to 5 lobes, ovate, with 3 to 5 lobes, margins
margins slightly convex from the straight or concave from the base
base to the apex of the first to the apex of the first lobe,
lobe, usually serrated; lobes usually entire, except at the
scarcely longer than broad, tips of the lobes; lobes longer
generally rounded. Peduncles than broad, and acute at the
commonly glabrous. Calyx-tube apex. Peduncles generally downy.
glabrous; segments glabrous, Calyx-tube more or less downy;
ovate-deltoid, acuminate, segments slightly downy, ovate-
spreading-reflexed, with recurved triangular, acuminate, suddenly
points. Styles usually 2 or 3. reflexed. Style 1. Fruit with
Fruit with 2 or 3 stones. 1 stone. (See plate.)
That the glabrous whitethorn would make the best hedge-row form we have
no doubt, as its free growth and early leafing particularly recommend
it; and besides, though not the commonest, we cannot help thinking it to
be the hardiest variety, and one that would be likely to succeed in
soils where the ordinary one would be very slow in growth.
We have occasionally met with it in nursery-plantations, as well as in
hedge-rows, where it is distinguished at a glance by its more freely
growing twigs and brighter coloured, quite smooth leaves; so also, but
more rarely, we have met with the Glastonbury thorn in the hedge-row,
which we look upon as a variety of the glabrous thorn, a specimen of
which is now before us (January, 1865), with both leaves and flowers
well in bud, in the midst of a deep snow and a severe frost.
This variety is fabled to have sprung from Joseph of Arimathæa’s
staff, which he is supposed to have planted in the soil at Glastonbury,
on Christmas-day, prior to the foundation of the abbey at that
interesting place; and we have found some natives, both here and in
Herefordshire—whither perhaps the thorn had spread with sorts of
apples,—who adduce the budding of this thorn, which is usually after our
present Christmas-tide, as an evidence that Old Christmas is the right
day.
But we must not be too far led away by the legendary lore, much less the
poetry connected with the whitethorn.
We come now to a description of the methods to be observed in planting
fences, having taken for granted that quicks be employed for the
purpose, and that we encourage the production of the sort best adapted
to our purpose,—an end which, we conceive, will be well attained by
offering prizes to nurserymen for good and well-grown quicks.
In planting hedges, then, our first care should be to prepare the
ground. This must be done according to the soil; and here it may be
noted that there are two plans of doing this most commonly used, namely,
raising a mound, on which the quicks are to be planted without a ditch;
and the making a ditch and planting the quicks on the top of the
elevated soil. Now, curiously enough, the first method is the one
usually adopted in light, porous soils, as on the sands of Dorsetshire;
the second, in porous stones, where ditches are not required, as in the
oolitic districts; or else in clay soils, where alone the ditch is at
all advisable.
We advise that in light soils, as sandy loams, where drainage is not
required, the ground be well dug on the flat before the planting of the
quicks; that in thin soils on brashes the brash be loosened; and then
that some soil be carted on this surface, making an additional thickness
of not more than six inches of soil. As regards the preparation for a
fence, by previously making a ditch, we object to it on account of the
loss of ground; the ditch, again, if forming part of the system of
drainage, is always liable to become choked by weeds, brambles, and the
like, with water-plants growing in it. Had we to begin the laying-out of
ground, we should make our drainage-system independent of the fences;
and so, however stiff our clays if well drained, we should as a rule
only raise the soil where a fence was to be planted, by a few inches.
We speak the more strongly on this matter, because on our own farm we
have fences attempted to be grown on the top of mounds five feet high,
and which are made out of some of the lightest agricultural soil in
England, so light, indeed, as at first to appear to be a nearly pure
sand. On the same farm, again, we have yawning ditches in oolitic
limestone, which never carried water; and Mr. Parkes made ditches of
this kind on the College-farm at Cirencester, which have ever been
equally dry. These banks and ditches are worse than useless in our own
case: quicks will not grow at all; and so the bank is covered with all
kinds of shrubs, mixed with weeds, neither sufficient to keep in cattle,
nor prevent the workmen trespassing in every direction.
The next subject for consideration is that of the planting of the
quicks. To this end we should choose our plants to be of about four or
five years old; and in all cases, if possible, should personally
superintend their removal from the nursery. Old bundles of quicks, that
have stood it may be two or three weekly markets, will be sure to cause
disappointment. They should be removed so as to secure as many of the
rootlets—not merely the larger roots—as possible.
In planting, which should be done as quickly as may be after removal,
avoid the dibble, or anything which would tend to combine the roots in a
small compass. The best plan is to use the spade and to spread the roots
carefully; then cover them up, and tread the plants firmly into the
ground, taking care, if it be in a retentive soil, not to leave holes in
which water could stagnate.
When so planted, at about from six to nine inches, they should
annually, or twice a year if necessary, be hoed and weeded and have the
surface-soil tolerably well stirred, and, usually at the end of about
the third or fourth year, be carefully cut down within six or eight
inches of the ground, and the soil well stirred and manured. This would
appear to be a waste of time; but a single year will restore the plants
to even a greater height than before, and with all the elements for a
thick impervious bottom, from which time annual careful trimming—always
when the leaves have performed their functions and fall off—will be
sufficient to keep the hedge in an improving state.
We have here advocated planting in single lines. Some, however, prefer
double rows of quicks; but the latter are more difficult to keep clean
and to cultivate; and we have ever seen that it is not the quantity, but
the quality and the after-treatment of the plants which result in the
compact and repellant hedge.
Of course, all young hedges must be protected by a dead fence; and for
this purpose we prefer posts and rails of wood, or, if to keep back
sheep, mixed with a line or two of hoop-iron: this, according to the
situation of the fence, will be required on only one or on both sides.
In planting young beech, or hornbeam, or any non-spinous plant, for
hedges, it is advisable to cross the sets like a series of XXX’s,
overlapping each other at about ten or twelve inches apart; by this
means the branches interlace, and a compact fence, difficult to
penetrate, will be formed.
[Illustration: _E.B. 2504._
Cratægus monogyna. Common White-thorn.]
Maple may be used in the same way; but it never makes a strong fence,
and it has not the advantage of the two former, as its leaves fall off
at the approach of cold weather, which is not the case with either beech
or hornbeam, whose leaves are eminently persistent, especially in the
earlier part of their lives.
If furze hedges be required for any position, they may easily be grown,
either by taking up young plants from the waste and planting them where
wanted, or by sowing seed, which can readily be obtained from any
seedsman.
Before sowing, the ground should be lightly dug, and the seeds, after
being soaked for a few hours in water, be thinly sown, and be only just
covered up by the soil. This operation may be done in February; and when
the seeds come up, if they are covered over by branches of cut furze, or
these be stuck here and there in, or on, either side of the rows, the
young plants will be protected from cattle and sheep, which are fond of
nibbling the tender furze shoots.