OSAGE ORANGE FENCES.

Raising Plants.-The seed can generally be purchased of any seedsman. I soaked the seeds in water for forty-eight hours before planting. When treated thus they sprouted almost as freely as could be desired. Those not soaked came up sparsely and very badly.

The ground was prepared as for ordinary garden seeds. The seed was placed in rows, about one foot apart and about one inch deep. I kept the plants carefully weeded from their first appearance till the autumn. The result has been that plants raised one spring are fit for setting out as hedges the next spring.

Preparing Ground for the Hedge.-In the autumn the line of the ground on which the hedge is to stand is dug as a trench, about eighteen inches wide and one foot deep. The earth is laid on the side of the trench and the bottom broken with a pick. In that condition I left it during the winter for the frost to do its work.

Cultivating or Tilling.-In the spring when the ground is warm enough to cause the plants to show the first symptoms of life, by pushing, I put a quantity of the best barnyard manure in the trench or ditch, and on that placed the loose earth left lying at the side during the winter. In this ground the plants were placed. If in two rows, eighteen inches apart; if in one row, nine inches apart. The latter, I am inclined to think from experience, is the best for every purpose.

The plants thus set out were kept carefully

weeded and cultivated all summer. They sprouted slowly and very irregularly. But these were plants purchased. Those I grew were much quicker and more uniform. By the end of July nearly every plant was growing. In one instance, by count, I found but two out of two hundred and eighty failed.

Subsequent Treatment.-In the autumn, the plants treated as above stated had grown, in single stems, from three to six feet high, depending on the earlier or later start. The stems were quite thick.

These I laid down without cutting, nicking or breaking, by simply bending them nearly flat to the ground and weaving them as one would osiers in wicker work. There is little elasticity but great toughness in the wood, and the thorns secure them in place, when bent and woven, without tying or any other sort of fastening.

The next year the hedge started with an average hight of six inches from the ground, or the stems thus lying laterally along the ground. The leaf buds sent up shoots similar to those of the first year, but thicker and higher; many grew eight feet. The ground was cultivated with a hoe and weeded. In the autumn these stems were again laid down, without nicking, breaking or cutting. This made a hedge of lateral stems about eighteen inches from the ground.

The next summer the shoots grew, the upright ones much more vigorously than the laterals. When the upright shoots reached three feet or more I cut the tops with a sickle at the hight I determined. This was repeated at intervals, whenever there were a few inches above the line determined, from time

to time, as the hight of the hedge. This permitted the shorter and weaker stems to grow without checking till they reached the proper line.

The result was, that in the third summer from setting out the plants there was a good hedge, sufficient to turn ordinary cattle, as it seemed. Certainly in all subsequent years it was impervious to man or beast. And it had a foundation as firm as a fence.

Cutting. If this is done when the plants are young, they are so succulent that an amateur can readily trim two hundred feet in an hour, and feel no fatigue.

Laying Down.-I have this year adopted a plan that I deem a great improvement, and I have done it with stems varying from a quarter to an inch in diameter, thus: I cut off with nippers a number of stems to the hight of two fret, so that the stems, left at each end of the cutting, when laid down and woven into the upright cut stems, would cross each other, and give at least two lines of lateral stems, passing in and out of the cut stems, thus giving a living fence of about two feet high. I expect to trim the growth from these next summer to about three feet high, leaving the laterals to grow with little or no trimming, to form the hedge into the pyramidical form; which is essential, as lower branches will not flourish if upper branches overhang them.

If anyone can show more perfect fences that have thus been produced, I have yet to see or hear of them.

CHAPTER II.

DECIDUOUS HEDGES.

The satisfaction with which we dismiss live fences is more than doubled by the gratification derived from the study of hedges; whether those strictly for ornament or those for utility as well as ornament. It is a confirmation of the belief that horticultural taste is developing in America, that hedges are growing in popularity. In all parts of the country the demand for plants is increasing; and this book will find its more specific use in giving all required information on the planting, growth and management of this department of horticulture. I shall be compelled in this chapter to refer to some material developed in the previous chapter; because the thorns, the Osage orange and the honey locust may be used for beautiful as well as discordant purposes and so need not be discarded from our beautiful plantations.

SECTION I-MATERIAL.

There is no mistaking the conviction of farmers that where a hedge is needed the gleditschia or honey locust hedge is more satisfactory than the maclura or Osage orange. I find very few hedges of the latter in even tolerable condition, but many of the former. The gleditschia should not be allowed to