In many parts of England, hedges are an important part of the countryside. (A hedge is kind of fence made of bushes or trees.) An English botanist, Max Hooper, studied the English hedges and discovered some interesting facts about them. First, he determined that the older the hedge, the more species of bushes and trees it contained. Second, he concluded that a hedge usually starts with one species and gains a species with each century. Using this rule, which became known as "Hooper's Rule," people have studied hedge in England and discovered that many of them are very old. Quite a few of them have more than ten species, which means that they