RESULTS OF CLOSE TRIMMING.

It is supposed that none but single-row hedges will be trained by the repressive process of trimming twice annually, for the quicks in hedge of this form will be slender in consequence of the crowding of the roots from thicker setting in the rows. Trimming does thicken the surface of the hedge by causing a stubbed, stooling form of growth, but this form at the top soon shades the bottom part, keeping out air, light, and moisture.

After a few years of close pruning, twice each year, inlaid hedges present a thin bottom growth. Trimmed hedges cannot well be trained more than two and a half to three feet high, a yard across at the bottom, while narrow at the top. Of these dimensions, a continually trim med hedge is not always a safe fence as against jumping horses and cattle, and its ultimately thinned bottom opens a door for the inroads of untamed swine. On the other hand, pleaching causes a thick, bottom growth, thicker after pleaching than before, by the combination of old and of new growth, and while ample new growth is forming in the bot tom the old saplings, now pleached layers, are still kept growing; and if not cut two-thirds through they will grow too much and prevent growth lower down, many of them sending up new shoots in all parts of the fence. The pleached saplings also add great strength to such forms of fence by combining an upright and an oblique, or an old and new growth, crossing and strengthening both forms of thorn material. The young shoots from the bottom of a pleached hedge tend outward in a degree toward the light, but the brush of the laid saplings can be spread wide enough to protect this growth, or so much of it as may be required, so that a properly pleached hedge, while making ample growth in the bottom also protects it. Hence a healthy growth of Osage thorn hedge may be made renewable for ages by successive and reasonable pleaching.

REPAIRING HEDGE FENCE.

A hedge that has been trimmed from five to seven years becomes so thin and inefficient as a fence in its lower parts, that it must either be laid or repaired. Such a hedge may be repaired by thrusting detached brush cut from the thickest places into the holes as compactly as this can be done and driving down stakes, or working saplings through it obliquely, according to the necessity of resisting swine, or straying hedge-breakers of any sort. The process of mending requires frequent repetition, when stock is grazed to any considerable extent near poor hedges, and laying will soon be found to be more economical than patching with repairs, however carefully performed.

HEDGING WITHOUT LAYING

consists in cutting back the quicks the first year at six to eight inches from the ground, cutting off the vertical shoots six inches higher the second year, and repeating the same process and distance the third season, when the hedge row will be about two feet in height. It is then allowed to grow another foot higher when the top growth is again carefully cut off, after which the hedge is kept down by close trimming in July and November of each year. This is hedging by negation, or repressing it instead of first encouraging growth, and then training so as continually to maintain it in the bottom equally with the top of the

hedge. The plan involves the performance of so much labor, and appears so little adapted to extensive hedging that we do not recommend it, believing that it would retard the extension of true hedging.

TRAINING HEDGE FENCE.

Osage thorn fence, when kept down by trimming, should be trimmed as soon as the spring growth, sometimes called the midsummer shoot, is completed. This may be earlier or later, according to the character of the season, but the interval of rest between the first and the second stage of the year's growth usually occurs before the first of July. During this interval of rest, directly after the first growth is complete, is the best time for summer trimming. The second trimming may be performed at any time between the falling of the leaves and the setting in of severe freezing weather, but no trimming should be done when the sap is congealed to any great extent by frost.

TRIMMING TOOLS.

Some persons may prefer one form of tool, others another. A variety might be suggested, but we sketch two only of the best for practical uses. Figure 8 represents the trimming hook, and Figure 9 the trimming blade. Both require handles from two to three feet long, according to the height of the operator. When the growth to be cut off is small, the hook with a shorter handle may be used with one band, but in all cases when the shoots are thick and vigorous, the trimming blade is the most effective and the most convenient tool.

HOW TO TRIM HEDGE FENCE.

If, in the process of trimming, the shoots are cut toward the bottom growth of the wood as downward in an unlaid one, or against the leaning direction of the layers in a laid hedge, the ends from which the shoots are cut are more or less split, bruised, or maimed, and the result will be dead, stubbed ends. To avoid such injuries, all trimming should be performed by striking toward the tips, as upward with unlaid hedge, and in the direction the brush leans with such as have been pleached. The principle is the same in trimming hedge as in pruning by hand. The wood cuts will heal well, if they are smooth, and the new growth will start at the top instead of below the ends that have been cut.

PLEACHING HEDGE.

The season in which to pleach is not when the hedge is growing, but in the fall, between the falling of the leaves and the time when winter sets in. Osage thorn hedge should not be pleached during severe freezing weather, but pleaching may be done in mild weather, when there is but little frost in the wood, and in the winter in southern latitudes. In the northern belt, where the Osage thorn thrives, which is as far north as southern Wisconsin, it is not safe to pleach in winter. But if not done at the best time in the fall, this work may be performed before the buds swell in the spring, as early as the middle of March.

An Osage thorn hedge will attain a given size earlier in some localities than in others, according to the richness of soil, and other conditions affecting the rate of growth. Size rather than age, therefore, may de

cide the question when to pleach. A hedge requires laying when the stems of the saplings average two inches in thickness at three feet from the ground. Hedges that grow slowly, as they will in wet ground, if they grow at all, may require laying when the saplings are one-fourth smaller, though no younger, to thicken the bottom of the fence. Osage thorn quicks may attain this size in six or seven years. When the saplings are much larger, the labor and expense of pleaching will be proportionally greater.

HEDGING TOOLS.

The tools required for pleaching or laying are few and simple in form. Figure 10 represents the pleaching hook, the point being somewhat beaklike in form, and the handle made of wood. The uses of the four-toothed press pole, Figure 11, will hereafter be stated.

REPAIRING HEDGES FOR FIRST PLEACHING.

There being no horizontal or oblique old layers to pull out when a hedge is to be first laid, the process of preparation is very simple. It consists in trimming off such straggling side growth as may be in the way of the workmen; setting the stakes if a single row or a staked hedge is in hand, and cutting off saplings close to the ground where there are more than one to a foot. The thorn brush thus obtained may be used to fill in at the bottom, and in thin places.

LAYING SINGLE HEDGE.

In single-line hedge the saplings are so wound between as to press against the stakes, the tips or brush ends being all turned to the beveled or slanting side. For a single-thorn hedge, the form of Figure 8 is preferable. In this form the tips or brush are turned equally and alternately on both sides of the stakes, and thirty degrees is about the right inclination of the saplings when pleached. The hedge being commenced right by thrusting brush down among the live-shoot stakes to rest the first layers upon, the layers being placed at the same angle throughout, the work proceeds to completion. To prevent breaking where the saplings are cut and bent in the act of laying down, take care to cut twothirds off, as this prevents too much sap from going to the layers, and causes a thicker and stronger degree of new growth from the bottom of the hedge.

RELAYING HEDGE FENCE.

This work is the most difficult of all hedging operations. The first step is to trim away the straggling side-shoots, as just described. The hook (Figure 10) is suited for this work, gathering straggling growth 'better than a straight hedge tool. Next pull out the old layers, drawing them out by the butts, or lower ends. This will be the tough part of hedging work, and it seems practicable to perform it by an easier, if not a quicker, process, by the use of horse-power. A boy can lead a horse, with a suitable chain attached to the whiffletree, while a man attaches the chain to the lower ends of the old layers, as fast as he comes to them; and so on from one end of the hedge to the other. The old stuff, botli live and dead, being cleared out, the stakes are set a few inches one side of the line of saplings, and the laying is then proceeded with, by bend

ing down the saplings one by one, cutting each as much as two-thirds off, about three inches from the ground, this height being required to facilitate the bending to the stakes without breaking off the remaining third, by which the saplings are still attached to their roots, and through which they are to be kept alive. This very important process should be performed with deliberate care, and as fast as each sapling is laid down, the stub joined at its base by cutting is to be cut off by a short sideblow with the hooked edge of the pleaching-hook. The first cut of twothirds, to facilitate laying down, is made with the reverse edge, seen in the projection on its part, Figure 10. It is quite necessary to cut off the stubs, or the young growth to come forward will be from the tips of the stubs instead of from the ground, where it is required. If left uncut the stubs will also prove great obstacles to the work when, in six or eight years, the laying down process must be repeated.

PLEACHING STOUT OR TANGLED HEDGE ROWS.

When the saplings are large there will be found much spreading brush on the sides of the tops, and it will be found diflicult to crush this growth on the side that goes under in laying the sapling in the hedge. It can be cut off when brought down low enough, but this will be found slow work. When the vertical stem-growth is three or more inches in each sapling, the work may be reduced. The strongest under-branches must be cut off to admit of laying well. But the hedge (double-row hedge being now under consideration) being ready for laying, three men, one to cut and two to pull down and press, can get on proportionately easier than one alone.

Two men use the press-pole, represented in Figure 11; the other uses the pleaching-hook. The pole is thrust through behind each stout vertical sapling, when both men pull gently and equally. Thus bent back a little, the third man cuts it two-thirds through, cutting obliquely downward with the pleaching-hook. The two men steadily press the sapling down to the laid part of the hedge, the teeth in the pole keeping it from slipping sideways, and also serving to guide it to its assigned place, when the men bear heavily on the pole, forcing down the sapling, and crushing back the brush on its under side, till both are in the desired position. The force here employed is threefold as great as one man can exert in the same work. Consequently, much of the trimming from the under side, to let the brush sapling into its place, is saved, while all the men are enabled to work with less hindrance from thorn brush, and the hedge is made thicker and stronger. The man with the pleaching-hook cuts off the stubs, and attends to any trimming that may be required, while the others are at work pressing down the sapling brush. A tough pole is necessary for this work, and the process appears more workman-like than for two men to bend down Osage thorn saplings with pitchforks, thus wasting half their power.

HERRING-BONE HEDGE.

We have spoken of pleaching double-row hedges, by crossing the saplings alternately, when each sapling, and cach row, by the force derived from thorns and roots, severally and reciprocally supports the other, and resists every tendency to displacement. This form of fence may be made even stronger by placing a continuous line of long, medium-sized, rough-trimmed saplings in the angle or crotch above the line where saplings cross one another. No stakes are required. This