It has been the practice of
Herefordshire, in the plantation of quick-set-hedges, to plant a
crab-stock at every twenty foot distance; and this they observe so
religiously, as if they had been under some rigorous statute requiring
it: But by this means they were provided in a short time with all
advantages for the graffing of fruit amongst them, which does highly
recompence their industry. Some cut their sets at three years growth
even to the very ground, and find that in a year or two it will have
shot as much as in seven, had it been let alone.

8. When your hedge is now of near six years stature, plash it about
February or October; but this is the work of a very dextrous and skilful
husbandman; and for which our honest countrey-man Mr. Markam gives
excellent directions; only I approve not so well of his deep cutting, if
it be possible to bend it, having suffered in something of that kind: It
is almost incredible to what perfection some have laid these hedges, by
the rural way of plashing, better than by clipping; yet may both be used
for ornament, as where they are planted about our garden-fences, and
fields near the mansion. In Scotland, by tying the young shoots with
bands of hay, they make the stems grow so very close together, as that
it encloseth rabbets in warrens instead of pales: And for this robust
use we shall prefer the blackthorn; the extravagant suckers which are
apt to rise at distance from the hedge-line, being sedulously
extirpated, that the rest may grow the stronger and thicker.

9. And now since I did mention it, and that most I find do greatly
affect the vulgar way of quicking (that this our discourse be in nothing
deficient) we will in brief give it you again after George Markham's
description, because it is the best, and most accurate, although much
resembling our former direction, of which it seems but a repetition,
'till he comes to the plashing. In a ground which is more dry than wet
(for watry places it abhors) plant your quick thus: Let the first row of
sets be placed in a trench of about half a foot deep, even with the top
of your ditch, in somewhat a sloping, or inclining posture; then, having
rais'd your bank near a foot upon them, plant another row, so as their
tops may just peep out over the middle of the spaces of your first row:
These cover'd again to the height or thickness of the other, place a
third rank opposite to the first, and then finish your bank to its
intended height. The