LEE COUNTY. 125 



counties. Hedges are also grown to a considerable extent, and dispense 

 with much fencing lumber. The osage orange here makes an excellent 

 fence when properly planted and taken care of. The history of this 

 plant is peculiar. Many years ago it was extensively introduced in 

 Northern Illinois. Miles of it were planted in hedges. There was great 

 faith that it would prove an excellent fencing material, but the hedges 

 were poorly planted and suffered to take care of themselves. As a 

 natural consequence, poor cultivation and several hard winters caused 

 the hedges to fail as fences. For several years the osage orange at- 

 tracted little attention as a fencing material. But in course of time, a 

 few hedges that had been properly cultivated grew into beautiful and 

 successful fences, and public attention was again turned to the osage 

 orange. Miles of excellent fence may now be seen in these northern 

 counties, and hundreds of miles are planted every spring. Instead of 

 the few rows of straggling, ragged, unevenly grown bushes which used 

 to deform the landscape, long lines of well-grown, compact, green shin- 

 ing walls of hedge plants may now be seen, which would defy a buffalo 

 to break through them. 



Hedge-growing and timber-growing are not geological questions, but 

 they are great material interests, which are now attracting much atten- 

 tion. 



Bock and Green rivers, and the upper portion of Big Bureau creek, 

 are the only streams of consequence in the county. All these flow in 

 the same general direction, and almost parallel with each other. The 

 general course of these streams is from north-east to south-west. Eock 

 river strikes the county at Grand DeTour, about twelve miles east of the 

 north-western corner of the same, and cuts off about two townships 

 from the north-west corner. From Grand DeTour to Dixon the bluffs 

 approach closely to the river, are bold, rocky, and precipitous, cut up 

 with ravines, and show excellent outcrops of the several formations of 

 Silurian rocks. Below Dixon the bluffs gradually recede and grow 

 lower, and finally swell away into undulating prairies of great beauty 

 and fertility. Green river is not a river, or even stream, for a portion of 

 its course across the county. It takes its rise in the swampy land in 

 the eastern part of the county, and in the Inlet swamps between the 

 the eastern and central parts of the county. The surplus waters of this 

 Inlet swamp, two or three miles south-east of Lee Center, are gathered 

 into the first well defined stream or current of Green river. For ten or 

 twelve miles the stream flows south westward, and again becomes lost 

 in the interminable Winnebago swamps, in the south-west part of the 

 county. Along its whole course there are no bold bluffs, no distinctive 

 river valley, and no outcropping rocky formations, except about Lee 

 Center, where some low outcrops of the Galena limestone are quarried. 



