STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 251 



3rd. The Madura without thorns, if such a thing ever was, would be for every man 

 who can be strictly Impartial, a much more desirable shrub for fence than Lb the 

 present worse than porcupine. The days are past in which thorns are indispensable to 

 B live fence; indeed the thorn part was always more useful as a fancy than as a reality. 

 From five to ten inches apart say the < (sage men now, and plash at that ; and the reason 

 is, that an expensive experience has shown that thorny twigs will not keep out our 

 enterpri-ing rooters; and the bodies must be crowded together so that solid wood, not 

 thorns impedes the trespasser. If bale wood is to stand from five to ten inches apart 

 why not have bale wood which grows twice or thrice as rapidly as Osage, and is with- 

 al! useful, not a thorny nuisance. A Lombardy tree fence can be planted and tended 

 at about 50 per cent, of the cost of a Madura hedge, and it will yield what Madura 

 will not in must cases, fuel to pay for the ground it occupies. 



In Jo Davies county there is a certain five year old row of Lombardy poplars, which 

 were planted from six to eighteen inches apart, and there is now no opening in the 

 line of greater width than four inches, and present prospects indicate that the trees 

 will many of them soon touch. If any tree will stand close planting, it is the Lom- 

 bardy ; and when growing too high, a topping at five feet high will not injure its 

 vitality, and the wood removed is a good fuel as aspen, if cut and piled under the shel- 

 ter of a roof. 



The Honey Locust, a very synonym for hardiness and health, deserves better treat- 

 ment at our hands than it has received. It will hedge in Illinois either by dwarfing or 

 bale fencing ; and it is such a luxury in this long and worm ridden country, to possess a 

 No. 1 tree, which is bug and worm proof. Many members of the great Cnetagus or 

 Haw family are quite capable of being dwarfed, and this family should not be given up 

 yet as a hedger, without further trial. Buckthorn is a success in northern Illinois, 

 though its rather slow growth is against it. The Hedge Sloe (Viburnum Pubescens), 

 which we have recommended for trial, is a shrub of hardy appearance and in its natural 

 locations forming dense hedge-like thickets ; the wood is rigid, tough and of fine grain, 

 and it bears fruit so abundantly that seed for propagation may readily be obtained. It 

 is not thorny, but its short, strong laterals answer all the good purposes which thorns 

 do. The last hedger we shall allude to here is the Acer Negunda or Honey Maple, 

 known also as Ash Leaf Maple, Box Elder, etc. This tree, though as yet untried in 

 actual hedge, has been seen growing under such conditions as to make it almost cer- 

 tain that it will bear crowding in a single line, so that the bodies touch. Its' extreme 

 tenacity of life, surviving every vicissitude, even throwing up a lusty rank of young 

 saplings, when half uprooted and prostrated by the freshet ice, and defying solely and 

 alone, the assaults of the batallions of city cows, which had destroyed all the other 

 native trees in their range, prove it a worthy subject for experiment ; and when we add 

 to its supposed value as a barrier, its known value for fuel and as a sugar producer, it 

 r.-ally seems that more is to be hoped from this tree than from any other. 



The only tree productions we shall call attention to as sources of profit, arc, first, the 

 fruits, and 6econd, sugar. Among the fruits there are few if any, which may not be 

 Improved into an Increased usefulness, when we come more fully to understand the 

 philosophy of varieties. At present we are in the dark as to the causes which produce 

 new varieties of excellence and worth; but it is far from chimerical to hope that we 

 may yet know how to produce definite improved varieties. 



The Native plum and the Chickasaw plum, and that other Tennessee plum which the 



