Hedge laying is a country skill, typically found in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which, through the creation and maintenance of hedges, achieves the:
- formation of livestock-proof barriers;
- rejuvenation of existing hedgerows, by encouraging them to put on new growth and helping to improve their overall structure and strength;
- affording greater weather protection to crops and wildlife; and
- provision of aesthetically pleasing screens to fields and gardens.
Read more about Hedge Laying: Theory, Snedding, Traditional Regional Styles
Famous quotes containing the words hedge and/or laying:
“Take the instant way,
For honor travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue. If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by
And leave you hindmost.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)