12 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



used if exposed to cattle only on the road side, 'where they may 

 be lined with a wire fence. 



Hedges have been long and extensively used in older coun- 

 tries, where they add much to the beauty of the landscape. 

 While many of these live fences are more for ornament than 

 protection, they may be made to serve for both. The difficulty 

 attending their introduction into this country, where they would 

 be more exposed to animals, has been, to find a tree or shrub 

 adapted to our climate, and sufficiently formidable for defence. 



The Osage Orange is being tried on the western prairies with 

 success, but for New England, we have no doubt the three- 

 thorned acacia ( Gleditsckia triacanlhos') is the most suitable, if 

 not the only one to be depended upon for field purposes. These, 

 as age increases, have thorns that no animal will encounter. 

 They are quite hardy, grow rapidly ; their foliage is beautiful, 

 and being of the locust family, if like that, they do not impov- 

 erish the soil, they will be invaluable. 



The agriculturist, being an ample owner of land, has the 

 power of excelling all others in the cultivation of trees of all 

 kinds, fruit, forest and ornamental, the most rapid means of 

 changing the aspect of grounds destitute of all scenic beauty, 

 to the most effective in the line of embellishment. He may 

 smile at the use of the word cultivation, in connection with 

 forest trees, but the period has arrived in their history when 

 art must come to their aid. He has swept the primeval forests 

 from the face of the country witli a wasteful hand, not sparing 

 even enough to propagate the species by the curious construc- 

 tion of their episperms, to be disseminated and grow spontane- 

 ously. Would he again have the nakedness of the land clothed 

 with verdure, profitable in itself, and serviceable in protecting 

 other things, he must go about it deliberately, as he would the 

 raising of any other crop. This has long been attended to in 

 other countries with satisfactory remuneration for a series of 

 years, besides being highly ornamental. 



Acres on acres may be seen with us in all directions, not 

 however on every farm, almost barren wastes, producing neither 

 grass nor valnable trees, but crowded so thickly with obnoxious 

 shrubbery, that the former cannot obtain a footing. These 

 lands are not only excessively embellished through the neglect 

 of the owner, but in the products, he does not graduate the 



