THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



Hedges are low windbreaks; windbreaks are 

 high hedges. Hedges along the street, or else- 

 where, as fences, I do not admire or recommend. 

 Fifty years ago there was a great wave of hedge 

 planting. Everybody must have a hedge of osage 

 orange; then the thorn trees came into popularity, 

 and then the willow, and the locust. Now there 

 is hardly a good osage-orange hedge in the State of 

 New York, and very few left in the Western States. 

 Those that remain are ferocious and unmanageable. 

 It is a serious task to undertake to trim an osage- 

 orange hedge; and it is a more serious job to root 

 out one that has got beyond trimming. The wil- 

 low proved a fallacious fraud, and the hawthorn, so 

 beautiful in England, suffers in the United States 

 from our hot summers, and from the woolly aphis. 

 The honey locust or gleditschia proved to be much 

 better for hedging; and there are still scattered 

 about the country many fairly good hedges of this 

 plant. It is very handsome in foliage, but it is liable 

 to be gnawed by mice in the winter and not seldom 

 girdled. The thorns are very objectionable, and 

 when they fall into the grass become dangerous. 

 It is not safe to leave the trimmings in the pasture, 

 or allow them to get into the hay from the meadow. 



[118] 



