FOKEST AND STREAM. 



1229 



footttxnd, Wzwn and %m&m. 



HEDGES AND THEIR USES. 



No. X. — The English Hawthorn, (cratcegus oxywnthus.) 



"Marke the faire blooming of the hawthorn tree, 

 Who finely clothed in a robe of white, 

 Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight.'" 



WE pass now to the consideration another plant 

 used for hedges, ornamental screens, and pictu- 

 resque grouping on the lawn, both for beauty and use. It 

 is quite astonishing that so valuable an addition to fallow 

 grounds, our excellently well-tilled farms, our fine grass 

 lands, our orchards, and even grazing lands, as a good sub- 

 stantial hedge, should be so little valued. "We are very 

 happy to be able in this paper to say a word or two in an- 

 swer to a respected correspondent from Pennsylvania, in 

 which he says : ' 'Our forests are rapidly melting away be- 

 fore the axe of the pioneer in search of a home. Our wil- 

 dernesses and dense woods are no longer. They were — 

 their glory has departed. The beautiful cooling shades of 

 our quiet woodlands yield themselves up to the woodman's 

 axe, and the broad glare of a July sun has forever, we fear, 

 put to flight those sylvan retreats. Cannot something be 

 done to stay this great desolation?" 



One has only to pause for a moment and look this sad 

 effect of a great love of "progiess," as it is called, fairly 

 and squarely in the face to see that our fine forests are rap- 

 idly falling before an everyday increasing population, who, 

 like our corporations, have no souls, and never stop to 

 think that there is a day after to-morrow. What shall be 

 done, then, to stop. this march of desolation which is ab- 

 sorbing our fine forests and laying waste our cherished 

 woodlands? Soon all these fine large forest trees— the oak, 

 the hickory, the ash, and the lighter woods — the pines and 

 walnuts — will be wanting for our floating palaces and our 

 ships. Where can we find a substitute for all these? 

 Nowhere. Heretofore our fences have been made from 

 our forests, but we cannot expect, with any reason, that 

 this is always to be the case, and we must, as a natural re- 

 sult, look to our numerous fine hedge plants to fill up this 

 gap. 



We think that very few have fully estimated the value 

 of our common fences. Turn your eyes for a moment to 

 the wants of the great West, where we find, at the lowest 

 estimate, we want three miles and a quarter of fence to 

 each quarter section of land, and this will be found just 

 sufficient to enclose and run two partition fences through 

 it, In this estimate we leave our lanes and roads, which 

 often have to be made before we have, in western phrase, 

 a "well fenced farm." Just here comes in our English and 

 American thorn for these partition fences, and that they 

 can be well used we have not a single doubt. When the 

 subject of "live" fences was first placed before the farmers 

 of this country for their consideration very few had heard 

 of such a thing as a live fence, and scarcely one man in 

 ten knew the English Buckthorn from other forest shrub- 

 bery. In 1840, in conversation with quite an intelligent 

 Illinois farmer, on most other subjects, he laughed outright 

 at my inquiry as to "live hedge fences." "You can't do 

 nothing nohow, stranger, with these little shoots— a hedge 

 fence. Ha, ha! don't you believe it. Nonsense; I've no 

 time to give to green apple sprouts; all moonshine." Ten 

 years after this my old friend, who so contemptuously 

 turned up his nose at my inquiry, has since learned that 

 even he — "an Illinois farmer," as he boasted — could have 

 been, and was, mistaken in his estimate of the hawthorn 

 for a hedge on the prairies of his native State. He now 

 says: "One of my grave misconceptions with regard to 

 the use and availability and fitness of the buckthorn for 

 hedge-enclosing fences has given way to my practical con- 

 nection with the same. I have used these and the osage 

 orange for fencing for ten years, and now (1850) I am sat- 

 isfied I can use no better fencing material than I have in 

 the osage orange and the English thorn." 



It is very true that the English hawthorn failed to give 

 satisfaction in the days of its first adaptation to the uses of 

 the hedge, and while some few successfully cultivated this 

 plant others made a failure. This was not to be found in 

 the plant so much as in the man, as future operations and 

 experiments have quite successfully shown. Much of the 

 dissatisfaction given to the hawthorn was the result of lack 

 of culture of the right kind after the plant had started. 

 Many English professional hedgers— experts, as they called 

 themselves— made some "big blunders," and became dis- 

 couraged at what they did not do, notwithstanding what 

 they did do was bad enough, and charged it upon the coun- 

 try as "not fit to grow an English thorn." They attempted 

 to give laws and theories upon American gardening about 

 the years 1840 to 1850, and great was the ignorance and im- 

 pudence possessed by them. Under the culture of these 

 humbugs the hedge soon became a choked up mass of 

 weeds, grass, briars, and wild raspberries; literally clogged 

 and choked to death with many kinds of noxious weeds. 

 Then, after this period of three or four years of neglect, 

 just when it needed true scientific nursing and careful cul- 

 ture, along comes a burly English "gardener and hedger," 

 as he calls himself, with a huge pair of shears, and lie 

 "goes in," not to prune, but to cut and slash, and if there 

 is anything left of the poor neglected hedge he "finishes it 

 up," and goes on to the next plantation. 



The traveller through the States of Ohio, Indiana, and 

 Illinois, and many of our older States, will rejoice in the 

 view of many beautiful English hawthorn hedges. This 

 exhibition of wealth and beauty shows us the fact that in 



he hawthorn we have a good reliable material for parti- 

 tioning and enclosing large tracts of land, and that all we 

 want to know in order to possess these two elements is how 

 to plant, train, and cultivate the same so that it may prove 

 a success. 



In the first attempts with this plant, in the days of "long, 

 long ago," the seeds were procured from England and 

 planted. In later times the plants were, at a very small 

 cost, imported and planted, and now these plants can be 

 raised here in any quantities, and are ready for the hand of 

 the planter at any time, and are of a superior quality. 



In order to have a good buckthorn hedge the ground 

 should be prepared in the same manner — by deep trenching 

 and mellowing — as for the osage orange. In fact, the treat- 

 ment given to the orange will not fail if given to the buck- 

 thorn. The plants should not be too closely together; but 

 as soon as set I recommend the mulching of the same deeply 

 with leaves, straw, or, if I can have it given me, tan bark. 

 After the starting of these plants the future trimming is 

 the main thing to be carefully carried out. For the first 

 three years but little is to be done, but this little is all im- 

 portant. 



Culture. — Keep the hedge entirely free from weeds of 

 every kind. If possible, as it will be on prairie land, run 

 your cultivator as often as once a week each side your 

 hedge, and let the boys follow after with a narrow hoe 

 and remove every green thing from the row. Let all the 

 shoots grow that push upwards, as you will want them 

 next year. When you mulch deeply this treatment will 

 prabably be unnecessary. During the first year let your 

 hedge grow untouched, and firmly fix their rootlets in the 

 earth. Next year you can with safety apply your pruning 

 knife by cutting the hedge row back to within two or three 

 inches of the ground, and the next year, or wherever they 

 have sent out new shoots, cut them back again to three 

 inches of the starting place of these shoots, and always be 

 careful to leave from one to three inches of the new wood. 



Some have recommended that the hedge be trimmed the 

 first season of planting. My own experience has led me 

 to adopt a let alone theory for the first year. By pursuing 

 the above you cannot fail in securing a permanent, beau- 

 tiful, and strong hawthorn hedge, such as will delight the 

 eye in summer and winter. 



In our last paper we spoke of the osage orange in gen- 

 eral terms as a good plant for the hedge. We are quite 

 well aware that notwithstanding the great value of this 

 plant for hedge use, it is comparatively not sufficiently un- 

 derstood. We have no doubt, from personal obt ervation 

 and information grounded upon conversations with men 

 who have used the same for hedges, that it will, if properly 

 treated, stand our winters, certainly as far north as Chi- 

 cago. We shall devote a special paper to the treatment of 

 this plant in the course of this work. 



Ollipod Quill. 

 . -+++> 



—Orange Culture in Florida.— Trees can be had at 

 some wild groves for the getting. At others, ten to twenty- 

 five cents each is the price. An ordinary sail-boat will 

 carry thirty to seventy-five trees, averaging two inches in di- 

 ameter, and a round trip of twenty to forty "miles can be made 

 with a load in three or four days. If judiciously taken up, 

 carefully handled, and properly planted, from January 

 until March, and the sweet bud put in in May or June, they 

 will grow three or four feet the same year, and sometimes 

 will bear the next. Nearly all will bear the third year 

 with proper attention, and the fifth will reimburse all ex- 

 penses. From the present stand-point, looking through 

 the experience of others, and taking success as a guide 

 and error as a warning, a straighter and shorter path, (fast 

 becoming a plain, well-beaten highway,) can be taken to 

 success. Sweet seedlings, from three to five years old, cost 

 twenty-five cents to one dollar each, according to age and 

 size. They are hardy, rapid growers, and usually bear the 

 seventh year. The effects of budding or graf ting is the 

 same on them as the sour tree. Field crops are usually 

 made three or four years, widening each year the space 

 between the rows and trees. ' 



The past has presented no difficulty in the way of orange 

 culture, which energy and good judgment will not over- 

 come. — Bural Carolinian. 



ttntal l§inimy). 



> — * — 



THE SEA LIONS AT THE CENTRAL PARK 



SLEEPING IN A CO LD ROOM. 



HALL'S Journal of Health says that cold bed chambers 

 always imperil health and invite diseases. Kobust 

 persons may safely sleep in a temperature of forty or under 

 but the old, the infant, and the frail should never sleep in 

 a room where the atmosphere is much under fif tv decrees 

 Fahrenheit. J s 



All know the danger of going direct into the cold from 

 a very warm room. Very few rooms, churches, theatres, 

 and the like are ever warmer than seventy degrees If it 

 is freezing out of doors it is thirty degrees— the difference 

 being forty degrees more. Persons will be chilled by such 

 a change in ten minutes, although they may be activelv 

 walking. J 



But to lie still in bed, nothing to promote the circulation, 

 and to breathe for hours an atmosphere of forty and even 

 fifty degrees when the lungs are always at ninety-eight, is 

 too great a change. Many persons wake up in the morn- 

 ing with inflammation of the lungs who went to bed well 

 and are surprised that this should be the case. The cause 

 may often be found in sleeping in a room the window of 

 which has been foolishly hoisted for ventilation The 

 water cure journals of the country have done an incalcula- 

 ble injury by the blind and indiscriminate advice of hoist- 

 ing the window at night. 



The rule should be everywhere, during the part of the 

 year when fires are kept burning, to avoid hoisting outside 

 windows. It is safer and better to leave the chamber door 

 open, as also the fireplace-then there is a draft up the 

 chimney, while the room is not so likely to become cold 

 It there is some fire m the room all night the window may 

 ue opened an inch. It is safer to sleep in bad air all night 

 with a temperature over fifty, than in a pure air with the 

 temperature under forty. The bad air may sicken you but 

 cannot kill you; the cold air can and does kill very often 



A VISITOR to the Central Park happening to be in the 

 neighborhood of the Menagerie about half-past throe 

 P. M. would naturally be drawn by the crowd to a large tank 

 containing the two Sea Lions. It is their dinner hour, and 

 if a favorable position to witness the meal can be obtained, 

 (for the spectators are early on the ground), it would prove 

 extremely interesting. Some time before the approach of 

 the keeper, the lions are on the qui vive and manifest their 

 impatience by repeated barks. 



When the food, which consists of different varieties of 

 fish, such as cod, herring and weak fish, (the cod weighing 

 sometimes as much as four and a half pounds), is finally 

 brought, they swallow it with a decided gusto dispensing 

 with the process of mastication. When the meal is finished 

 they show their satisfaction by dashing about in the water 

 for two or three hours, after which they remain on the 

 platform until the next morning. These Sea Lions, 

 E'umetopias stellere, were placed on exhibition last April and 

 are natives of the Pacific Ocean, north of the equator. 

 Their color is of a reddish brown, their hair is straight and 

 coarse, without any growth of under-fur, the nose, palms, 

 soles, and digital flaps naked and black, whiskers cylin- 

 drical long and whitish, ears short pointed and curled, eyes 

 large, iris black surrounded with a white ring, the fore 

 limbs large and triangular, terminating in a thick membran- 

 ous flap and situated almost in the centre of the body. The 

 hind limbs are broad, the width at the toes nearly equaling 

 the length of the foot, toes terminating in strong cartilag- 

 inous flaps deeply indented, the three middle ones having 

 well developed nails, the outer two provided with horny 

 disks or rudimentary nails. The hind feet &re always 

 directed forward when the animal is at rest. 



Their mode of locomotion on the ground is by raising 

 themselves on their fore limbs and placing the hind limbs 

 forward. The larger of the two lions measures about nine 

 feet in length and five feet in girth. The length of fore 

 flipper is twenty-eight inches; hind flipper, twenty-four 

 inches; weight, about nine hundred pounds. Their bark, 

 which is very peculiar, can be heard distinctly in the night 

 at the distance of nearly a mile. 



Having given this much space to our sea lions, a brief 

 description of the genus may not be out of place. The 

 color varies from pale yellowish brown to reddish brown, 

 and varies much not only according to age but also accord- 

 ing to sex. Full grown males measure from twelve to 

 fifteen feet in length, and weigh from twelve to fifteen 

 hundred pounds. The females seldom attain more than 

 one quarter the weight of a male. About the first of April 

 they commence to visit the breeding grounds, the old males 

 going first and selecting their places on the island. Shortly 

 after the females follow and as soon as a female reaches the 

 shore, the nearest male goes down to meet her and escorts 

 her to his plot. In a few days after landing the female 

 gives birth to one pup, weighing about six pounds. The 

 period of gestation is about tweive months. They exist a 

 long time without food, remaining during the breeding 

 season some two months on the shore without going into the 

 water, consuming their own fat, finally leaving at the end 

 of the season, greatly emaciated. One lion has remained 

 in the menagerie over thirty days without eating, being sick 

 at the time it was received. The sea lions that are seen in 

 the travelling menageries of this country are mostly pro- 

 cured by the fishermen in San Francisco Bay and sold to 

 Mr. Woodward, of Woodward Gardens, San Francisco, 

 who disposes of them again at the rate of one dollar per 



P° un <3. W. A. Conklin. 

 -*•«- _ • 



—It is almost impossible to rear a young hippotamus, but 

 it has lately been discovered that the mother suckles her 

 young under tne water, and in future it may not prove so 

 difficult a task. Out of eleven produced in Amsterdam 

 only one lived, and when nine months old it brought a 

 thousand pounds to go to America; but the man T\ho 

 bought it stopped in London and exhibited it at sixpence 

 a head at the Crystal Palace, and while there the Crystal 

 Palace caught fire, and the only hippopotamus ever reared 

 in Europe was roasted. 



-**>_ 



—The Parisians have anticipated our own movement in 

 the matter, and are now constructing an aquarium in the 

 Champs Elysees to rival those of Brighton, Sydenham, and 

 Berlin. The aquarium proper is to be supplemented by a 

 museum of fishing-utensils, and an antediluvian depart- 

 ment where extinct fishes are to be represented artificially 

 with the natural surroundings of the periods in which they 

 lived. The scheme will be carried out on a great scale 

 and it is expected that the aquarium will be completed by 

 June of next year.— Appletons' Journal. 



~"^***" 



—An English rural sportsman being asked by an old lady 

 vrith rather confused ideas as to horses and dogs, if his dog 

 was a hunter, said lk it was half hunter and half setter: he 

 hunted around till he found food, and then set down to 

 eat it !" 



— Two beautiful engravings given with every copy of 

 Forest and Stream. See advertisement. 

 ^ —There is good sleighing now pretty much all through 

 Canada, and the curling clubs are preparing for this favor- 

 ite winter pastime. 



—Persons who may wish to get up a club, for the Forest 

 and Stream, can select any article on our list of prizes- 

 There never was such an opportunity to secure a fine rifle 

 made by the best makers in the United States. See adver- 

 tisement. 



