STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 293 



opcninjT the first nursery for everp-een trees, we believe belonc^s to the 

 pioneer Osage hedgeiiian of our State, Prof. J. H- Turner, of Jackson- 

 ville. This nursery was commenced about the year 1840. 



It is to the Osage orange that Morgan county owes her glory (if she 

 has any) as a horticultural county. About the year 1S32, Prof. Turner 

 commenced experimenting with difl'erent hedge plants for the purpose of 

 obtaining a live fence that would eft'ectually turn stock, and endure our 

 dry summers. As professor in college and lecturer on common schools, 

 his main object, at first, was educational; desiring to enable the popula- 

 tion then almost wholly scattered on the timber borders, to concentrate, so 

 as to form compact and available common school districts. 



These experiments were conducted with much labor and care, and as 

 the plants had, many of them, to be obtained from abroad, they were 

 attended with no little expense. The return for this was, usually, a silly 

 jeer, or an incredulous laugh from the passer by. Even the Osage orange 

 for the first year or two, had the very pretty appellation of " Prof. Tur- 

 ner's Folly " or " Morus Multicaulis Hedge." While these experiments 

 were progressing. Dr. Nelson called one e\ening to see him, and the con- 

 versation turning to the subject of hedges, the Doctor entered into it warmly, 

 expressing similar views to his own in respect to their value and impor- 

 tance, and then remarked that while itinerating in the Southwest, years 

 before, he remembered seeing a plant growing on the Osage river, called 

 there the Osage orange, which, from its tenacity of life, and sharp thorns, 

 he thought might answer the purpose. He gave such a description of 

 the plant that the Professor immediately determined to send for it, and 

 accordingly wrote to every one in the Southwest he could hear of that 

 would be likely to give him any information about it. Put as the Doctor 

 had failed to give him the name, " Bois-d'Arc," by which it was known 

 farther west, these inquiries were pushed for sometime without any satis- 

 factory results. Finally an answer came from a correspondent in Ala- 

 bama, who sent him a few roots, which w'ere put out and found to grow 

 well; he now turned his attention to propagating from these with pretty 

 good success. But with a new supply of roots, came a few seeds taken 

 from the orange. The planting of these showed that from the seed it 

 could be propagated with great ease and facility. Experience with the 

 plant soon convinced him that the object of his search was now fully 

 attained. 



So the honor of first suggesting the Osage orange, as a hedge plant, 

 unijuestionably belongs to tlie learned Dr. Nelson, while onr county may 

 justly claim the honor of having brought it into use. In the earlier years 

 of the eighteen hunched and fortys, Prof. Turner had a good sample of 

 hedge, well made, which was inspected by many men of this and adjoin- 

 ing counties. 



But thousands of circulars were printed and circulated in the State 

 gratis, in addition to the continuous articles in the public papers by Prof. 

 Turner, before the plant gained any considerable public confidence. The 

 Morgan County Agricultural and Horticultural Society, established in 

 1850, has done much good work in promoting the interests of Horticul- 



