NEW METHOD OF TRAINING HEDGES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3175, 29 October 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEW METHOD OF TRAINING HEDGES.

Nothing is more attractive round a place than a well-kept hedge. But there is no beauty in a hedgerow unsighty and untrirr med, with part of it dead, other parts tall and ungainly. A new method of training hedges is meeting with favour and success in some parts of the country. The first step is to plough and manure the strip of ground heavily where the hedge is to be planted. Osage orange sprouts of a year's growth are then planted Bin apart, and the grouud kept mellow and free from weeds the first season. The next year the sprouts are braided on a flat sinuous iron fencing rod Btretched horizontally about 6in from the ground, ihe next growth of sprouts of course grows straight up, and the second season another of therods is fastened in the same way, and likewise tho third. A hedr;e of this kind was planted three years ago in this place and now is complete, and a more beautiful fence would be hur;l to find. The growth is from the ground, and is compact clear to the top, and no animal can get through it or over it. It is wide at the base and slopes upward. An old hedgerow running along the hi«hway was cut down close to the gronnd, and the following season when the sprouts cameupihey were braided as described above. The sprouts from this old hedge grew 7ft in one season, of course making from the large mass of roots a much more rapid growth than those from the voung cnttings, and producing a neat and attractive appearance.