CLIPPED HEDGE-ROWS.
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.