66 Game Survey of the North Central States 



Over most of northern Illinois and Iowa the removal of hedges is already 

 complete. In Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan there were no hedges be- 

 cause the osage is not frost-hardy there. There were few in Ohio, and in Indiana 

 they are confined to the riverbreak and prairie types. Hedges were common all 

 over the prairie and riverbreak types of Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Fortunately 

 the process of removal is much less advanced in Missouri than in Illinois and 

 Iowa, except on the Black Prairie northeast of Kansas City, which is as enter- 

 prising and as hedgeless as Iowa. There is a chance to preserve at least a part 

 of the hedges in the other parts of Missouri, where county agents estimate them 

 as only 10 to 50 per cent removed to date. 



In Missouri the osage also seems almost free from objection as a host of 

 San Jose scale. Dr. Leonard Haseman, professor of entomology in the agri- 

 cultural college, states: 



"For some unknown reason the osage orange hedges in Missouri during the 

 past 20 years have shown practically no serious infestation with scale . 

 As officer in charge of quarantine work from 1906 until 1929, I never once found 

 it necessary to condemn osage ... in the vicinity of commercial orchards." 



Fashions in fences, like other fashions, do not always weigh all of the evi- 

 dence bearing on the utility of the artick adopted or discarded. Why are 

 hedges still universal in England, where land is much scarcer than with us? In 

 the light of present agricultural over-production, is it really beneficial to make 

 every square yard of land produce crops? As against the debit represented by 

 land waste and harborage for pests, what credit should be allowed the osage hedge 

 for windbreak service, post supply, and harborage of insect-eating game and song 

 birds? Has any agricultural college ever tried to make the osage hedge into a 

 tighter fence by improving the original placement of the stems, or cheaper of 

 maintenance by divising a mechanical trimmer to dispense with hand pruning and 

 thus reduce labor costs? Is not the lack of movability inherent in a living fence 

 in part offset by its superior durability? 



From the game conservationist's standpoint, all of these questions merit the 

 same careful research which a thousand other agricultural questions are receiving 

 as a matter of course. They also merit debate by conservation organizations. They 

 have much more significance than the tinkering of conservation laws, the starting 

 of game farms, or the signing of conservation pledges by citizens who own no 

 land. More game would be produced by in some way paying the farmer a bonus 

 on hedges, than by spending the same money on foreign birds or Kansas rabbits. 

 The fact that questions of this kind are not discussed, not investigated, nor even 

 mentioned, is evidence that the game conservation movement has not yet come to 

 grips with the real fundamentals of the problem which it intends to solve. 



Siloing of Corn. In dairy districts it is increasingly common for farmers 

 to gather the corn in fall, stalk and all, for preservation as silage, or for storage 

 at the barn. 



