form of thorn fence is similar to the old time "herring-bone" rail and stake fence, and the name "herring-bone hedge" would not be inappropriate.

Another plan of forming two-row hedge, when laying it, may here be noted. The saplings, standing two feet apart in each row, are left at intervals of six feet in each line, to form live stakes by cutting the tops off. There will be layers enough when the hedge is again laid to admit of these stakes being cut out if they become stooly where previously cut off. About half the saplings may be laid along outside one stake, then inside of the next, and thence angling across to the other row; so of the saplings on each row, the ends of the brush protecting the young growth below the place where it hangs over on either side. The other half of the saplings is laid to cross one another in the center of the hedge, as in the herring-bone form, without regard to the stakes. The stakes and the layers can easily be taken out when relaying becomes necessary. The stakes are the means of adding side-walls, as it were, to the hedge. The hedge so made cannot be otherwise than very strong, from combining the herring-bone and staking features, and the combination affords a choice of two plans of stout double-row hedge, either of which is comparatively easy of construction and subsequent management.

TRIMMING WITHOUT LAYING, AND LAYING WITHOUT TRIMMING.

A hedge that is left without laying seven years will have been trimmed fourteen times. An average hand will trim a mile in twelve days. Multiply twelve by the number of trimmings, and we have a charge, at a dollar per day, of $168. The hedge so trimmed must be cut off at the ground, for it cannot be easily or tolerably well laid after seven years of close trimming. Hence, at the end of a seven years' course of trimming, we have an interval of two years without any fence, except the old brush lying beside it, to protect the young growth that is springing from the bottom to form the new hedge. With the untrimmed doublerow hedge we have a little more shade, far more protection against wind, no liability to trespass with jumping animals, a good fence during our life-time, little or no expense for trimming; but, at the end of the seven years, there is the expense of laying. A man will prepare, stake, and lay four rods of stout hedge per day, which is a dollar for every four rods, or eighty dollars per mile, in seven years. It will be seen that a course of seven years' trimming costs fifty per cent. more than once laying with no trimming; and, if we charge one dollar per mile per annum for a little trimming away of straggling shoots from the sides of the tall hedge, the result will remain substantially the same.

HEDGE AND DITCH FENCE.

As generally understood by those interested, there are large areas of both low and clayey soils in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota, where open ditches are required as water-courses. In some of those States several of these ditches have been made as a means of partial surface drainage; and many more would be made, some of them on division lines, where the ground is suitable, if the water-courses could be protected against damage to their sides by the treading of animals. There are many ditches which are water-courses in the spring, but which dry up, and remain dry, during most of the other three-quarters of the year, except during and for a brief time after drenching rains,

but which might be rendered more valuable could they be made to hold stock-water during a greater portion of the warmest season of the year. Shading, as is well known, retards evaporation, and these open ditches can readily be shaded by growing Osage thorn hedge-rows on either side, and when five or six years grown, or before, if the growth is vigorous, laying them down obliquely across the ditch, making a hedge over the water-channel, as shown by Figure 12.

The thorn brush would also protect the ditch banks against injury by animals in seeking water. The roots of the horizontal saplings and their living growth of thorn layers prevent the hedge growth from falling into ditches so fringed and shaded. If, in the course of years, such ditches should require cleaning out, the layers might be readily cleared away, and a new arch supplied from the fresh, vertical growth which had been allowed to form in readiness. Another important advantage of such shading would be that the shade of the horizontal thorn brush would keep the frost in till the general atmospheric temperature would be sufficient to thaw it out of all merely shaded ground. In this way the sides of the ditches and the tops and insides of the ditch banks, or ridges, may be secured against the crumbling and abrasion to which they would be subject by frequent freezing and thawing. Such protection and shading effects of horizontal hedges would also be advantageous in connection with outlets or open drains, particularly with the drains.

THE ESPARTO GRASS.

Rags have failed to supply the demands of paper-makers in this age of printing. A cheaper, more abundant fiber is essential to the undelayed advance of civilization itself. Straw is cheap and abundant, suited to the manufacture of low grades, but undesirable for the better qualities of printing paper. Wood has been used to some extent, and the swamp cane of the south (Arundinaria gigantea) is coming into extensive use as paper material.

While these and other fibers should be tested, there is one that has maintained for centuries a high reputation for various useful purposes, and within a few years has almost monopolized the European market for paper material-the Spartum of Pliny, the esparto of the Spaniards, known by various scientific synonyms, as Macrochloa tenacissima, Stipa tenacissima, and Lygeum spartum. It is also popularly known in Spain as the atocha plant, and in Algiers as alfa. It flourishes in Spain and Portugal, in Algeria, and in North Africa. It is said to be found also in Naples, Sicily, and Crete. The principal sources of supply are the provinces of Granada, Murcia, and Almeria, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Its fiber is exported also from the French port, Oran, in Algeria, in latitude 35° 44' north, immediately opposite the region yielding it most abundantly in Spain.

It is interesting to note the fact that New Mexico produces a plant the fiber of which appears to be similar to that of the Spanish esparto, as seen in the museum of this Department. It is known to botanists as Stipa tenacissima; was obtained in 1851 by Charles Wright, of the Mexican boundary commission, and may be found among the Department botanical collections. The latitude of the northern section of New Mex ico is the same as that of southern Spain, the climate in some respects similar, being warm, dry, approaching aridity, and the soil is suited to similar products.

The esparto is presumed to be identical with the spartum of the Latins, described by Pliny as useful in various arts of the Carthagenians in their first war in Spain. At that period the mountains of Spartacus Campus, including the territory between Grenada and Murcia, were covered with this spontaneous growth; and its uses in the Iberian peninsula were represented to be innumerable. The historian expressed regret that its great bulk prevented its transportation for a greater distance than thirty leagues, and its consequent universal dissemination as a valuable material for many industries. The region referred to is the precise locality of its greatest production now.

HABITAT OF THE ESPARTO.

It grows on sandy shores, and on the gravelly hills of the interior, upon soil so poor as scarcely to be capable of any other growth. It is a spontaneous product, requiring and receiving no care whatever, but becoming more vigorous and abundant with yearly or semi-annual gathering. The harvest is not obtained by cutting, but by pulling or separating from the root, a labor of little difficulty if performed at the right time, which is the month of May or June at or near the coast, and

July at the higher elevations of the interior. It is particular in the choice of soils, growing in one locality in great luxuriance, and in another enduring a dwarfed and feeble existence, as seen in 'isolated patches or tufts. Above an altitude of three thousand to three thousand five hundred feet it is rarely seen, and disappears in the vicinity of the line of winter snows. It may be said to be very hardy, though not so much in enduring severe frosts as in thriving in continual drought and great poverty of soil.

It grows naturally in tufts or clumps, and is gathered by pulling. If collected green, it becomes a transparent fiber of little value; if too dry, the constituent elements of silica and iron are with difficulty removed.

The gatherer protects his legs and hands with boots and gloves, and then twists the stem around a stick to obtain a better purchase. The time of harvest is from the middle of May to the middle of June. After being pulled it is collected into bundles, which are formed into a heap and left for two days. On the third day it is spread and exposed to the heat of the sun till dry, then rebundled and placed under shelter, and afterwards macerated in sea-water if it can be obtained, again dried, wetted, and beaten before it is ready for use.

NATURE AND USES.

The esparto of the interior is longer and whiter than that of the sea coast, but thinner, and of less strength.

It is estimated that fifty thousand persons are employed in the collection, preparation, and manufacture of this fiber in southern Spain. Large quantities of esparto thread are shipped to France, mainly to Marseilles, where it is used in making carpets, ropes, baskets, and packing fabrics. At Aquilas it is used for rope-making in place of hemp, and is crisped to imitate horse-hair for mattress material, for which purpose it is highly prized, being very durable, and not liable, it is claimed, to become a harbor for vermin.

As cordage it is regarded now with as much favor as in the times of the Carthagenians, from its valuable property of resisting decay in constant exposure to moisture. A considerable trade is carried on with the Indies in a style of shoe or sandal of esparto, "found very useful in hot, rocky, or sandy soil." The peasants, in a portion of Spain, use no other chaussure. It is regarded as graceful and classical, if somewhat rustic. This fiber is also used in the Scotch carpet trade in Kidderminster and Brussels goods.

Great improvements have been made in its preparation for papermaking. A process is employed for extracting the glue-like matter it contains, leaving the fiber clean and ready for use. Formerly thirty or forty per cent. of rags were used in the manufacture, but an excellent paper, strong and of fine surface, is now made without any admixture of inen or other material.

Of all the substitutes for rags tested and used at present in Great Britain, the esparto scarcely has a competitor. Some of the largest British papers are now printed upon it. Experiments have recently been made in softening the fiber, by passing it through machinery without the aid of caustic soda. So advanced are the processes by which it is converted into paper, that it has been claimed that a cargo arriving in London in the morning has been converted into paper during the same evening.

Its chemical constituents are said to be: yellow coloring matter, 12; red matter, 6; gum and resin, 7; salts forming the ash, 1.5; paper fiber, 73.5.

The quantity imported into Great Britain has reached the following figures: 1864, 43,403 tons; 1865, 51,570 tons, (£269,030;) 1866, 69,833 tons, (£311,868.) The entire importation of paper material, of all sorts, during the same years, was 67,819 tons in 1864, 71,155 in 1865, aud 94,985 in 1866-esparto constantly increasing its relative proportion, and attaining a maximum of more than seventy per cent. of the total foreign supply.

PROGRESS OF THE ESPARTO TRADE.

The Department has had, for several years, more or less correspondence with the United States consuls in Southern Spain on this subject, and has received very full accounts of the progress and condition of the esparto trade, especially from Mr. Frederick Burr, United States consular agent at Adra. When the recent demand sprang into activity, the fiber was obtained only from the hills and on the coast; but as consumption quickened the demand and advanced the price, the cost of carriage through a region almost destitute of roads was amply met, and the business of gathering and forwarding extended forty miles or more into the interior. The mode of transit is by "bullock carts." The provinces of Almeria and Murcia have furnished the greater portion of the supply.

In 1864 the cost in the interior was only four reals, or fifty cents, per quintal, while the freight to the coast was ten reals more. At that date the average price, on shipboard, was about £4 2s., or $20 50, per English ton. In the previous year it was purchased at about two-thirds that price. Prices have been constantly advancing since that date.

The crop is purchased annually of individuals or municipalities owning waste lands on which it grows by merchants or speculators, who employ the peasantry to collect the grass and convey it to local posts, ready for shipment by carts or on the backs of mules or donkeys. For tunes have been made by the proprietors of these hitherto worthless lands, and by the purchasers of them, as also by the traders in this species of merchandise.

Mr. Burr assumes that a vast breadth of country in the United States, in the same latitude in which it is found in Spain, is adapted to its, growth. The following extracts are made from his report to this Department.

There are two classes of this plant, the "atocha," properly so called, and the coarse cr "bastard" atocha. The latter is much superior in height, the grass growing to the height of about three feet, but it is inferior in quality and in strength of fiber, though used for several purposes.

The atocha grass, which is called esparto, is not cut like ordinary grass, but is pulled up from its socket, as it were, for it very readily separates from the plant a little above the roots, which it is necessary to leave undisturbed in the ground. The thin, wiry grass thus gathered is spread out to dry in the sun, and is the article known in Spanish as esparto.

The esparto grass, from the length and strength of its fiber, and the facility with which it may be twisted into ropes, and easily woven (or rather plaited) into matting, forms a cheap and useful article for many ordinary purposes. In the great mining district of the Sierra de Gador, in this province, and in that of Cartagena, and most others in Spain, all the ropes used in the mines are made of esparto. These ropes are very slender-about one and a half inch in diameter-yet they serve perfectly well for the descent and ascent of the miners, as well as for raising the ores and rubbish from below, and the baskets used in the latter operation are also made of the esparto. As the more mountainous parts of Spain are nearly destitute of cart roads, the chief transportation is on the backs of mules and donkeys, the articles carried being always packed in baskets or in panniers made of the esparto grass. All kinds of matting for houses and other purposes are also made of this useful article.

Besides these coarser applications, very neat and pretty baskets are made of this