Plashing of Hedges, is an operation thought by some persons to promote the growth and continuance of old hedges; but whether the fact be so or not will admit of some dispute. See Hedges, n° 29, 37, &c.

It is performed in this manner: The old stubs must be cut off, &c. within two or three inches of the ground; and the best and longest of the middle-sized shoots must be left to lay down. Some of the strongest of these must also be left to answer the purpose of stakes. These are to be cut off to the height at which the hedge is intended to be left; and they are to stand at ten feet distance one from another; when there are not proper shoots for these at the due distances, their places must be supplied with common stakes of dead wood. The hedge is to be first thinned, by cutting away all but those shoots which are intended to be used either as stakes, or the other work of the plashing; the ditch is to be cleaned out with the spade; and it must be now dug as at first, with sloping sides each way; and when there is any cavity on the bank on which the hedge grows, or the earth has been washed away from the roots of the shrubs, it is to be made good by facing it, as they express it, with the mould dug from the upper part of the ditch: all the rest of the earth dug out of the ditch is to be laid upon the top of the bank: and the owner should look carefully into it that this be done; for the workmen, to spare themselves trouble, are apt to throw as much as they can upon the face of the bank; which being by this means overloaded, is soon washed off into the ditch again, and a very great part of the work undone; whereas what is laid on the top of the bank always remains there, and makes a good fence of an indifferent hedge.

In the plashing the quick, two extremes are to be avoided; these are, the laying it too low, and the laying it too thick. The latter makes the sap run all into the shoots, and leaves the plashes without sufficient nourishment; which, with the thickness of the hedge, finally kills them. The other extreme of laying them too high, is equally to be avoided; for this carries up all the nourishment into the plashes, and so makes the shoots small and weak at the bottom, and consequently the hedge thin. This is a common error in the north of England. The best hedges made anywhere in England are those in Hertfordshire; for they are plashed in a middle way between the two extremes, and the cattle are by that prevented both from cropping the young shoots, and from going through; and a new and vigorous hedge soon forms itself.

When the shoot is bent down that is intended to be plashed, it must be cut half way through with the bill; the cut must be given sloping, somewhat downwards, and then it is to be wound about the stakes, and after this its superfluous branches are to be cut off as they stand out at the sides of the hedge. If for the first year or two, the field where a new hedge is made can be ploughed, it will thrive the better for it; but if the stubs are very old, it is best to cut them quite down, and to secure them with good dead hedges on both sides, till the shoots are grown up from them strong enough to plash; and wherever void spaces are seen, new sets are to be planted to fill them up. A new hedge raised from sets in the common way, generally requires plashing in about eight or nine years after.