No. 85.] 319 



ing about the head and horns. This is so much the case, that we can- 

 not permit them in our large peach orchards, in the fall, after the 

 fruit is marketed, without sustaining great injury. 



Lastly : celebrated as is this portion of Delaware for its live fences 

 of thorn, (and altogether there are many miles of it in the county,) I 

 know of no extensive plantations of it in the last eight or ten years 

 among our farmers, and I have no doubt this is owing to the reasons 

 assigned by us. In this neighborhood, but few other experiments 

 have been tried as far as my knowledge goes, with other materials 

 for live fences. The late Mr. Irene Dupont, on the Brandywine, 

 some years ago, planted out a number of the prickly acacia or locust; 

 they have all been recently cut down, and a board fence substituted. 

 The Madura aurantica or Osage orange has noi been used by us, but 

 I recollect seeing a very beautiful, thick, and ornamental hedge of it 

 a few years since on the grounds of Mr. Manfay, a successful gar- 

 dener near the Rising Sun, Philadelphia county. 



With all the discouragements that have yet attended making and 

 keeping in good repair, a live fence, yet, in many sections of the Uni- 

 ted States, it is absolutely needed where there is neither timber or 

 stone convenient. Therefore the trial should not be abandoned as 

 long as a ray of hope lasts for accomplishing a remedy and substitute 

 for decaying timber, and avoiding one of the most expensive items to 

 the farmer. Perhaps sufficient attention has not been paid to our 

 hardy prickly vines — such as the green-briar — for this purpose. It 

 has always seemed to me to put at defiance, more effectually than any 

 of this class, the intrusions of man or beast, whilst in the south the 

 Cherokee rose is highly lauded for live fence, and in some other sec- 

 tions the scrub cedar is spoken of for the purpose. I now recollect 

 that the late venerated and lamented Garnett, on his last visit to me, 

 highly recommended a species of (I think) the red-holly, which grew 

 abundantly in his section of Virginia, (Essex county ;) that it was 

 an evergreen, with ornamental red berries clustered on its boughs, in 

 winter ; of dwarf growth, matted close to the ground, and could be 

 matted and plaited so as to make a permanent fence. I have no per- 

 sonal knowledge of the tree ; but the endorsement and recommenda- 

 tion, coming as it did from one of the Fathers of American Agricul- 

 ture, would entitle it to trial. 



If any further information presents itself to me in a short time on 

 the interesting subject of your enquiry, it will afford me pleasure to 

 impart it. In the mean time, I must subscribe myself, 



Very respectfully, 



Your ob't servant, 

 JAMES W. THOMSON. 



