ENCLOSURES. 67 



from idle boys' rambles. It cannot be concealed that our 

 country is rather remarkable for its fruit pilferers. It is 

 feared it will continue to be so, until public opinion shall 

 place the young man who steals a pocket-book, and the 

 depredator of fine fruit, which has cost the owner as much 

 care and labor, and which money cannot replace, on pre- 

 cisely the same level.* 



This formidable evil has deterred many from planting 

 fruit-gardens. The most quiet and secure protection is af- 

 forded by a good thorn hedge. The English hawthorn, far 

 to the north, will generally succeed quite well for this pur- 

 pose ; the "Washington and Newcastle thorns are less lia- 

 ble to disaster from drouth and hot summers, and the at- 

 tacks of insects ; but the Buckthorn, which gradually thick- 

 ens in armour as it becomes older, appears to be the only 

 perfectly hardy and reliable hedge plant for severe climates. 

 The Osage Orange, however, where the winters are not too 

 cold, will be found best of all. Its numerous and terrific 

 thorns render it perfectly impassable. It is sufficiently har- 

 dy in all places where the peach crop generally escapes. 

 Further north than 41 or 42 degrees of latitude, it cannot be 

 expected to succeed in low valleys ; but on elevated ground, 

 the winter-killing of its smaller shoots, will only tend to 

 thicken it below, like trimming with shears. The Michi- 

 gan rose, in connexion with a high board or picket fence, 

 which it has covered and interlaced, has been found an ef- 

 fectual protection to a fruit garden. It grows as freely from 

 layers and cuttings as the grape vine. 



* <( The native fruit of a thickly populated country, growing without culture 

 and free for all, has doubtless had its share in producing this laxity of morals. ' I 

 would sooner have a hundred Irishmen round me than one Yankee,' was the declara- 

 tion if a sufferer, whose fruit had been plundered near the line of the Erie canal, 

 when that great work was in progress. But Europeans are generally more exem- 

 plary on this point than Americans — fehameonus! When Professor Stowe was in 

 Prussia, where ihe roads are lined with fruit trees by order of the government, he 

 observed a wisp of straw attached to particular trees, to protect the fruit; a sufficient 

 guard ; but he suggested to the coachman, that in America, il might only prove an 

 invitation to plunder. ' Have you no schools V was the significant reply. 



"Yes, we have schools; but how many where the child is taught to respect his 

 neighbor's property ? Too often he acquires literature and vice at the same time. 

 The slate of New- York is famous for her schools and her prisons; the latter to supply 

 the defects of the former system, which they do however, very imperfectly. Better 

 let the mandate go forth that the morality of Hie BibU shall be one of the chief objects 

 of instruction. Teach her children to be honest, and then with science and 

 literature, a foundation for true greatness and prosperity would be laid." — David 

 Thomas, in Trans. JV. Y. Stale Ag. Society, Vol. 1, p. 223. 



