AN EXPERIMENT WITU THE OSAGE ORANGE. 



foot apart. Tliose were cut down durinjx tlie first three years, respectively, to 

 within six, eighteen, and thirty-six inches of the gruujid. When four years old, 

 the hedge was seven feet high, beautiful and impassable, except for small pigs, 

 «tc. It was now manifest that, even if I had cut down more severely, it woidd 

 not have been sufiiciently close at the bottom; because the cutting produced shunts 

 too few and too uprif/Jit to close the fence. A heavy trimming made a few ram- 

 pant upright shoots. This, in rich soil, is commonly the great difficulty. The 

 few horizontal branches are deprived of vigor and vitality by the rapid growth of 

 these leaders. 



Instead of despairing of success, armed with stout gloves and a fine-toothcd 

 saw, I cut one hundred yards down to stumps only four inches high. When the 

 first crop of shoots had started and grown three inches, I commenced " the pinch- 

 ing process," by nipping their tender tips with the thumb and fingers. This 

 stayed their progress until they could branch again, and it had a twofold efi'ect. 

 First, it formed a second tier of branches just where they were needed, and where 

 the old method could have formed them only after another season, by cutting away 

 almost a whole year's growth. Second, it threw back the sap, which would have 

 pushed up the rampant leaders, into the dormant buds on the stumps still nearer 

 the ground than those which first started and were nipped. These new shoots, in 

 coming up, had to spread somewhat horizontally. When they had grown about 

 the length at which the first ones were stopped, they too were nipped. By this 

 time (about two weeks from the first pinching), those shoots which were first 

 stopped were breaking thickly and beautifully into side branches, the leaders of 

 which were also pinched when they had grown about four inches, stopping them 

 until, in two weeks, they would branch and form the third tier, which the old 

 method would have got by cntting down after another year. 



Thus, before the end of the season, notwithstanding these checks, the hedge 

 was again four feet high, presenting a wall of glossy foliage, and so thickly woven 

 throughout with twigs and thorns as to be impassable by the smallest domestic 

 animals. It is now two years old from the stumps, is seven feet high, and entirely 

 satisfactory. 



It should be remarked that the pinching need not be continued longer than 

 until you have thickened your hedge to the height of about three feet. After 

 securing this prime object, it will require less attention, and you can trim and 

 shape it with knife and shears as you please. 



Any one can, in this way, coinpel the Osage orange hedge to grow as thick at 

 the bottom as he pleases. 



The advantages are — that you can begin as low as you please, make as many 

 shoots as you please, locate them where you please, and sena-e the resrdts of three 

 years in one season — I mean in getting the hedge thickly closed at the bottom. 



Besides, the whole vigor of the roots and the whole growth of the plants 

 (except the trifling amount pinched off) are at once made subservient to perfect 

 ing the hedge. I may add that, in addition to saving and directing the whole 



