IN SCOTLAND.

325

compensate for the trouble of cutting, and the waste of groundoccupied by the wide bank and the whin-hedge *.

The Cockspur-thorn of America has lately been recommend-ed for trial as a hedge plant, and has attracted the notice of theBoard of Agriculture, which has wisely ordered the seed to beprocured, in order to sow it in this country for trial. Othershave recommended the French or the German tamarisk, as pe-culiarly calculated for growing in places exposed to the seabreeze. It is easily propagated by cuttings, and takes root andgrows rapidly. This plant is already a native of the south ofEngland, where it grows abundantly on St Michael’s Mountin Cornwall , in the fissures of rocks, and on earthen mounds orbanks, putting forth numerous elegant flowers, which are verygrateful to bees. The German tamarisk is said to be fullymore hardy, especially in the property of resisting severefrosts, which injure the other. Though rather a feeble plantfor a fence, as not affected by the sea-spray, if it could bearfrost, it might be useful in particular situations, by the shelterit affords. There is a thorny shrub mentioned in Wither-ing’s botanical arrangement of British plants, as growing onthe coast of Lincolnshire, which stands the sea spray, andwhich might be useful in some situations f.

* Anderson’s Essays on Agriculture.

| Sir John Sinclair’s Systems of Husbandry, Tart I. Cb. i, Sect. 4.