40 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



over-ripe timothy or clover. Grain will not 

 supply the deficiency. The teg thrives best on 

 early cut hay. It should be of fine quality. 

 It should be cured bright and green. None 

 need be told that the best feed requires to be 

 given with regularity — that sheep of all ages 

 should get Avater in the winter — that stables 

 should be spacious, well ventilated, and occa- 

 sionally cleared of festering accumulations of 

 manure. With a due attention to all the above 

 circumstances the loss of tegs in our countiy 

 would be materially diminished. — Eiiral New 

 Yoi'ker. 



HEDGES AT THE WEST. 

 After a full and patient trial of the osage 

 orange, since its first introduction as a hedge 

 plant, with careful observation of the success 

 obtained by others with it in Iowa and Illinois, 

 a correspondent of the Prairie Farmer comes 

 to the conclusion that the hedge system of fenc- 

 ing is totally unsuited to the protection of fields 

 against the droves of cattle which run at large 

 on the Western commons, and that money, 

 time, and labor expended on the osage orange 

 are a dead loss. He says : 



I would ask of your many intelligent corres- 

 pondents if they know of a single hedge that is 

 stock proof? I have examined them all over 

 several of the Western States, and have not 

 seen one that could be relied on lor keejjing 

 out hogs, much less smaller animals. I have 

 seen very many beautiful thorn hedges in the 

 State of Delaware, and also in Great Britain ; 

 but in both these cases no stock was permitted 

 to run at large and no such severe te^t could 

 be made as we apply to hedges in this country. 

 Had such been made, these doubtless would 

 also have fiiiled. 



When osage orange was first introduced we 

 were told that its thorns were so powerful and 

 persuading, that no stock of any description 

 would go within yards of it. This was certain- 

 ly a mistake. I have seen cows rvin and butt at 

 a hedge now in my sight, breaking it down 

 precisely as they do an evergreen when they 

 have the chance. To such an extent was this 

 carried, that the owner was obliged to put up 

 a wire fence outside to keep stock off ; and now 

 they poke their lieads between these and browse 

 upon it with perfect impunity. 



At a late interesting discussion of this sub- 

 ject by the New York Institute Farmer's Club, 

 statements were make tar more favorable to the 

 success of the osage orange as a fencing plant 

 at the West than the loregoing. It is certainly 

 to be hoped that the unfavorable opinion of tin; 

 correspondent of the Prairie Farmer will 

 |)rove unfounded, and that the broad praii'ies 

 of the West may yet be "suitably divided'' 



into convenient fields by a living, cattle-proof 

 hedge. At the discussion alluded to, — 



Mx. Crane said his brother fenced half a sec- 

 tion of land in Henry County, 111., with the 

 osage, which is a perfect fence against all stock. 

 When the plants were two years old, they were 

 frozen down to the ground. The dead brush 

 was left standing and made a partial fence, 

 while the new shoots came up ten times as 

 thick as the old ones, making the hedge closer 

 and better. He has a ten-acre hog-pasture 

 fenced in this way, which holds the animals 

 better than a board fence. Alongside an or- 

 chard, it has been left to grow untrimmed, and 

 is there oO feet high. It is a valuable wind 

 screen. A machine for trimming hedges has 

 been invented, which will enable farmers to 

 keep their hedges in order. 



This machine may obviate one of the great 

 objections to live fences, — the constant care 

 which is necessary to keep them in order. 



Mr. S. E. Todd said that the osage orange 

 winter kills in New York, but that there are 

 miles of hedges in Onondaga County made of 

 English hawthorn, which have been in existence 

 more than 40 years, and are perfect fences 

 against all stock. 



Dr. Trimble had known of miles and miles 

 of hawthorn hedges in Delaware and Pennsyl- 

 vania, which, after serving the jjurpose some 

 years, were destroyed by insects ; first in gaps 

 that were stopped by rails ; then the interven- 

 ing spaces of plants were neglected, grew -un- 

 sightly, were abandoned for a time, and finally 

 uprooted. 



This agrees with oiu- o%vn observation of the 

 experiments which have been made in hedge- 

 growing in New England. For some twenty 

 years we have watched the results of experi- 

 ments on the "Brooks estate" in Medford, on 

 the line of the Lowell railroad, with several 

 kinds of plants. These experiments, conduct- 

 ed at considerable expense, have resulted much 

 as Dr. Trimble says those in Delaware and 

 Pennsylvania have done. 



■WOOL RAISING IN TEXAS. 



We noticed a few weeks since the departure 

 of Dr. Boynton, for Texas, with a drove of the 

 Vermont iNIerino sheeiJ. From a letter written 

 by him in Bell county, Texas, and 2:)ublished 

 in the Mirror and Farmer, we copy the fol- 

 lowing paragraphs : 



The profits of the business here and in the 

 North are not to be compared. There it costs 

 from thirty to forty cents to raise a pound of 

 wool ; here it can be produced for ten cents. 

 But then no northern man must suppose that he 

 can come here and rapidly grow rich by keep- 



