CLIPPED HEDGE-ROWS.
Reading edition
No art connected with gardening has been so generally ridiculed in modern times as the topiary art, or that of vegetable sculpture. It is certainly not worthy of defence; and yet it seems to me quite as rational to cut out a figure in box or yew, as to shear the branches of a hedge-row to reduce it to architectural proportions. I cannot see why vegetable architecture is any more rational than vegetable sculpture. I cannot see why those persons who admire a clipped hedge-row should object to an “Adam and Eve in yew,” or a “Green Dragon in box,” nor why those who are willing to torture a row of shrubbery by this Procrustean operation should not be pleased with a “Noah’s Ark in holly,” or an “old maid-of-honor in wormwood,” as described in Pope’s satire. Of the two operations, I consider the one that still maintains its ground in popular taste the most senseless. “An old maid-of-honor in wormwood” would at least have the merit of being ridiculous; but a clipped hedge-row is simply execrable, without affording any amusement.
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