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] 
