DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
183 
species employed should all be as distinct as possible, to 
give the whole as much variety as can be obtained in 
a limited space, such trees should be selected as will not 
only be ornamental, but combine some other charm, 
association, or interest. Among such trees, we would by 
all means give the Osage orange a foremost place. It has 
the additional recommendation of being a fine shade tree 
and of producing an excellent and durable wood # 
The stout growth and strong thorns of this tree have 
been thought indicative of its usefulness for the making of 
hedges : a method of fencing, which sooner or later must 
be adopted in many parts of this country . and from the 
experiments which we have seen made with plants of the 
Osage orange, w r e think it likely to answer a very valuable 
purpose ; especially in the middle and southern states. 
The Messrs. Landreth of Philadelphia have lately offered 
many thousands of them to the public at a low rate, and 
we hope to see the matter fairly tested in various parts of 
the Union. 
A rich deep loam is the soil best adapted to the growth 
of this tree ; and as it is rather tender when young (though 
quite hardy when it attains a considerable size) it should, 
as far as possible, be planted in a rather sheltered situation. 
A dry soil is preferable, if it must be placed in a cold 
* A very superb effect may be produced with this tree, by cutting it 
severely back for several years, and compelling it, as the English call it, to 
stole, by sending out a dozen leading shoots, instead of one ; a plant treated in 
this way, becomes, after a few years, a gigantic bush, round-headed, and most 
luxuriant, and when covered with its golden fruit, peeping out from amidst its 
exquisitely green foliage, it is the most superb floral ornament to a lawn that 
can be conceived. We recollect a surprisingly fine specimen of an Osage 
Orange treated in this way, at the late Dr. Edmondston’s, near Baltimore, 
where a plant about twenty-four years old measured in circumference, one hun- 
dred and sixty-five feet! the limbs lying about with a profusion of growth 
positively wonderful, and covered with fruit.— II. W. S. 
