The nut, guelder rose, and elder have none of the qualities for hedge growth that are required by the former; on the contrary, they have large leaves, and so smother the quicks if they grow with them, and when cut they shoot rapidly, especially in the case of the elder (_Sambucus niger_), and so make a hedgerow look ragged by here and there growing a yard or so above the ordinary hedge-plants; but, besides this, the lower stems get free from leaves, and hence gaps are easily made in bushes of nut, dogwood, elder, &c. In the above description of hedgerow plants we have omitted all mention of yew, holly, laurustinas, furze, and the like, as being more properly materials for ornamental or garden hedges. The furze, however, is sometimes used on the tops of mounds, in some sandy districts, as a fence plant, but the constant dying of the old wood and the consequent exercise by the cottager of a fancied right to pull the hedge to pieces for firing render it almost impossible to employ it to any advantage. CHAPTER XXXIV. 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.