wedge shape, but shearing is objectionable as
causing a thick and short growth of leaves at the exterior, excluding
light from the inside and causing bare branches there. Cutting back more
irregularly with a knife allows the growth of interior foliage, and
gives more breadth to the hedge. The sheared hedge presents an unnatural
stiffness in ornamental grounds; but skillfully cut back with the knife
it has more of the beauty of natural form. The manner of pruning is very
important, both as regards utility and beauty. For farm barriers hedges
do not require so elaborate care. Another mode of treatment has been
adopted in the Western States. The trees are trimmed and the main stems
trained upright for a few years. They are then cut half off at the
ground and bent over at an angle of thirty degrees with the ground, a
tree being left upright at distances of four or five feet, and the
inclined ones interwoven among them, a straight line of trees being thus
formed. The tops are then cut off about three feet high. New shoots
spring up in abundance and form an impenetrable growth, as many as
fifty having been counted from a single plant the first year. The top is
cut to within a few inches each year of its previous height. Hedges made
in this way have no gaps.

A similar treatment may be adopted when a hedge becomes too high by long
years of growth. The trees are first partly trimmed with a light axe or
hook with a long handle, and then half cut off at the ground and bent
over. A new growth will spring up and form a new hedge. This course was
adopted by the essayist with a hedge planted twenty-eight years ago, and
which has been a perfect farm barrier for more than twenty years. The
cost of this hedge was about twenty-five cents a rod the first year, and
the three subsequent cuttings for sixty rods cost about twenty dollars,
averaging less than a dollar a year. But it was usually too tall and
shaded, and occupied too much ground, to be recommended where land is
valuable.

Ninety rods of Osage orange hedge, properly trimmed, cost about the same
for the first four years of cultivation, but more for annual cutting
back. It was planted twenty-four years ago, and has been a perfect
barrier for about twenty years. The yearly cost of pruning was about
four cents a rod for ten or twelve years, and since it has become larger
and higher nearly double. For cutting back a stout hook with a handle
two and a-half feet long or a stout scythe