THE GENESEE FARMER 



91 



to render it impenetrable to a bird. As regards the 

 shape of the hedge, the taste of the grower will dic- 

 tate. A neat and most convenient shape for a farm 

 hedge is about five feet high, and three feet wide at 

 the bottom, gradually narrowing so as to render the 

 top like the ridge of a house. 



'• Trimming the Hedge. — In tlie growing of a 

 hedge, as in the erection of a building, it is all im- 

 portant that we make a good foundation, and this 

 can onh- be secured by close pruning; neglect or de- 

 lay in this will cause disappointment and much fruit- 

 less labor. Many who have attempted to grow the 

 Osage Orange have failed in their object, either by 

 being in too great a haste to complete it, or by labo- 

 rious experiments in the way of bending down and 

 interlacing. &c., as a sub.stit'ute for the use of the 

 knife. It should be rememhered, then, that the Osage 

 Orange will bear any amount of trimming, and that 

 a hedge sufficiently firm and compact at the base can 

 be made in no other way than by regular and severe 

 cutting dotcn. The spiing succeeding, or one year 

 from the setting, cut all down to within four inches 

 of the ground, as seen at the left hand of the cut. 



VEGETABLE 



PHYSIOLOGY 

 CULTURE. 



AND PEAR 



" I'he growth after a few years is quite slow, and 

 the shoots so fine that one can scarce believe it to be 

 the same plant. One trimming a year will probably 

 be all that will be necessary, except for ornamental 

 hedges. 



" The hedge should not be set within four or five 

 feet of a fence, particularly on the north side of one 

 where it will be shaded, as this prevents its thicken- 

 ing. It should also be fully protected from stock for 

 the first two years. 



" The labor of trimming a hedge ia much less than 

 many people suppose. An active man with a good 

 implement and practice, will trim one hundred and 

 fifty rods per day. A corn hook placed on the end 

 of a hoe handle is as good a tool as probably will be 

 found for common hedges. A long knife and pruning 

 shears may be used for others. 



"The Osage Orange will be found to afiFord the 

 most efficient protection to orchards and gardens, as 

 it is much easier to scale any kind of board fenc€ 

 that can be made than an Osage Orange hedge five 

 feet high. It is highly ornamental, and will be found 

 very suitable and appropriate for enclosing church- 

 farda and cemeteries." 



ly noticing the Transactions for 1853 of the North- 

 Western Fruit Growei-s' Association, in our last 

 number, we promised our readers in this the perusal 

 of Prof. Kirtlaxd's instructive Letter on the Pear, 

 with editorial remarks. The subjects discussed are 

 not less important in a chemical, physiological and 

 pathological point of view, than as a branch of profita- 

 ble agricultural industry. What is said m favor of 

 potash, phosphate of lime, and other inorganic ele- 

 ments demanded for the healthy groAvth of Pear 

 trees and their fruit, coincides with our own oliserva- 

 tions and belief in the premises ; but the ideas ad- 

 ■\anced about "suckere springing from the roots of 

 trees being evidence of pre-existing diseiise," a]:)pear 

 to us as having been adojjted without due considera- 

 tion. Under favoring circumstances, roots and stems 

 put forth living buds from which new trees or plants 

 are developed. This production of a perfect oflspring 

 is neither unnatural, nor a morbid actior Not only 

 do plants propagate their respective species by the 

 economy of buds as well as seeds, indefinitely, but the 

 same great law of vitahty is extended to one of the 

 lowest tribes of animals — namely, coral insect. Every 

 system of stratified rocks, down to the Cambrian, 

 contains the remains of bud-formed polypi ; and yet, 

 like the Apple and Pear tree, which' Ibnn perfect 

 seeds and buds, these polypi propagate by eggs (seeds) 

 as well as by buds. All seeds, when studied anatomi- 

 cally, are found to be only a mass of cells ; and all 

 buds are the same. 



_ If the vital principle of buds is found to be some- 

 times feeble and worthless for the continuance of the 

 species, precisely such is the condition of many seeds. 

 Too many seeds falling upon a given area of gi-ound 

 and taking root, compels many seedling plantsto die 

 prematurely. Too many budl'ings starting into being 

 from the roots of a Pear, Apple or Plum tree, rudely 

 broken by a plow, over-stock the soil, and some die 

 early from starvation. Seeing that coral animals have 

 been propagated by buds during the long geological 

 ages required to form stratified rocks, abounding in 

 the remains of polypi, forty thousand feet in thickness^ 

 surely the antiquated notion of KLmgiit and others 

 that plants can only be successfully propagated by 

 seeds, ought to be abandoned. The same Infinite 

 Wisdom that formed seetls, created buds also ; and 

 Nature is as ready and willing to avail herself of the 

 use of buds as of seeds to prolong the existence of 

 plants on earth. The diseases of fruit trees arise from 

 defects insoil, in climate, from the attacks of insects 

 and parasitic plants, and the bad pruning and manage- 

 ment of man — not from any inherent, constitutional 

 malady in suckers or buds. L. 



"Letter from J. P. Kirtland o.v the Pear. — 

 Fifty years since my attention was directed to the 

 cultivation of the Pear, by the observations of an 

 old and experienced nurseryman. At that day there 

 might be seen, in certain localities, a few lofty and 

 venerable Pear trees — the productions, perhaps, of 

 the Seventeenth Century. They were still healthy 

 and productive. The varieties were limited, but em- 

 braced, among others, the Summer Bon Chretien, 

 then known as the Summer Bell — one a kin to the 



