The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs 



work of taming the wilds of the Middle West. Farms had to be 

 enclosed. Board fences were too costly, and were continually 

 needing repairs. Fencing with wire was new and ineffectual, for 

 barbed wire had not yet come into use; so hedges were planted 

 far and wide. The nurserymen reaped a harvest, for this tree 

 grows from cuttings of root or branch. All that is needed is to 

 hack a tree to bits and put them into the ground; each fragment 

 takes root and sends up a flourishing shoot. 



It is a pity that this stock mostly came direct from Arkansas 

 and Texas. A cold winter with little snow killed miles of thrifty 

 hedge, just as it reached the useful stage. Sometimes the roots 

 sent up new shoots, sometimes they didn't, and gaps of varying 

 widths spoiled the appearance and the effectiveness of hedges 

 throughout Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Then barbed 

 wire was introduced, and wicked as it was, it defended the growing 

 crops from free-ranging cattle as no other fencing had done. In 

 most places the hedges were let alone on farm boundaries. These 

 old hedgerows have become an im.portant source of fence posts. 

 No timber furnishes better ones. A row often produces twenty- 

 five posts to the rod. These bring from lo cents to 20 cents each 

 in local markets, a fact which makes them a very profitable crop. 

 The native Osage orange tim.ber is all exhausted now; and as the 

 old hedgerows are passing, systematically maintained plantations 

 of Osage orange, grown for posts, promise to pay increasingly 

 well. They ought to be largely planted in the tree's natural range. 

 Occasionally a remnant of the first planting is met with as a fine 

 roadside tree, glorious in its lustrous foliage, formidable thorns, 

 and the remarkable green oranges that hang on the fruiting trees. 

 It is a tree well worth planting for both ornament and shade, for 

 it harbours few insects and has withal a unique character. It is a 

 "foreign-looking" tree. 



I had a personal experience with the Osage orange. "The 

 leaves are food for silkworms" so the nurseryman had told us 

 and we could have silkworms' eggs from Washington for the 

 asking. Now, gingham aprons were the prevailing fashion for 

 little girls on the Iowa prairies princesses in fairy tales seemed to 

 wear silks and satins with no particular care as to where they came 

 from. Silkworms and Osage orange offered a combination, and 

 suggested possibilities, which set our imaginations on fire. Lettuce 

 leaves sufficed for the young caterpillars then the little mulberry 



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