Note E112 — 19.

According to Norden (Surveyor's Dialogue, 1607, p. 239) the best mode of making a quickset hedge is as follows: "The plants of whitethorne, mixed here and there with oke and ash"; if the plants are not easily procured, then "the berries of the white or hawthorne, acornes, ash keyes mixed together, and these wrought or wound up in a rope of straw, wil serve, but they will be somewhat longer in growing. Make a trench at the top or in the edge of the ditch, and lay into it some fat soyle, and then lay the rope all along the ditch, and cover it with good soile also, then cover it with the earth, and ever as any weedes or grasse begins to grow, pull it off and keepe it as cleane as may be from all hindrances, and when the seeds begin to come, keepe cattle from bruising them, and after some two or three yeares, cut the yong spring by the earth, and so will they branch and grow thick, and if occasion serve, cut them so again alwayes, preserving the oake and ashe to become trees." The best time to lay the berries in this manner is "in September or October, if the berries be fully ripe."