360 TREES. 



Hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain, familiar all their 

 lives with hawthorn hedges and their treatment, and deploring the 

 unsightliness of "posts and rails" in America, have made hedges of 

 their old favorite, the common English hawthorn, and given them 

 every care an'd attention. Here and there we see an instance of 

 success ; but it cannot be denied that, in the main, there is no suc- 

 cess. The English hawthorn is not adapted to our hot and bright 

 summers, and can never be successfully used for farm hedges.* | 



Bnt there are many species of native hawthorn scattered 

 through our woods. Will not these make good hedges ? We 

 answer, excellent ones nothing can be much better. Almost any 

 of them are superior to the foreign sort for our climate. We have 

 seen hedges of the two species known in the nurseries as the New- 

 castle thorn ( Cratcegus crus-galli) and Washington thorn (C. cordata), 

 that realized all we could desire of a beautiful and effective verdant- 

 less fence. 



A few years ago, therefore, we strongly recommended these na- 

 tive thorns we hoped to see them planted in all parts of the coun- 

 try. But we are forced to admit now that there is a reason why 

 we fear they will never make permanent hedges for the country at 

 large, and for farm purposes. 



This is, their liability to be utterly destroyed by that insect, so 

 multiplied in many parts of the country, the apple borer. Wher- 

 ever there are old orchards, this insect sooner or later finds its way, 

 and sooner or later it will attack all the hawthorns, whether native 

 or foreign, for they all belong to the same family as the apple-tree, 

 and are all its favorite food. Fifteen years ago, a person riding 

 through the lower part of New Jersey and Delaware, would have 

 been struck with the numerous and beautiful hedges of Newcastle 

 and Washington thorns. Whole districts, in some parts, were 



* We know there are exceptiona We have ourselves about 1000 feet of 

 excellent hedge of this plant. And we saw, with great satisfaction, last 

 summer, on the fine farm of Mr. Godfrey, near Geneva, N. Y., more than a 

 mile of promising young hedge of the English thorn. But the soil and climate 

 there, are peculiarly favorable. These are exceptions to thousands of in- 

 itances of total failure. 



