114 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
were made up of cattle, sheep, swine, &c. The 
Director General of Agriculture presided, and 
gave the Society an excellent address. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
CULTIVATION OF THE OSAGE ORANGE FOR A 
HEDGE. 
In the first place, it is important to procure 
genuine and sound seed. The seeds of the 
Osage Orange are enveloped singly in the tough 
and fibrous substance composing- the fruit or 
ball. Extracting the seed without injuring then- 
vitality is a slow and tedious process. In order 
to do it with greater facility, many unprinci¬ 
pled persons have resorted to scalding, or to a 
high fermenting process, which entirely des'roys 
the germinating principle of the seed. 
The seed of the Osage Orange requires a high 
temperature to induce vegetation, and hence 
they should not be planted until the warm 
weather of spring is established, say about the 
first to the tenth of May. About two weeks 
before planting, the seeds should be put in soak 
and remain in the water for three days. Not 
more than two quarts should be put in the 
same vessel. Turn the water off and cover the 
seed with a cloth, and place them in a warm 
room, and stir them daily. They should be 
kept sufficiently moist to induce vegetation. 
Should the weather prove favorable, the vessels 
containing the seed may be plunged into a hot¬ 
bed, where they will sprout more speedily. As 
soon as the germ begins to appear, they should 
be planted. 
The ground selected for the seed beds should 
be rich, and should be plowed deep and thor¬ 
oughly pulverized and finely raked. Lay the 
ground off in drills one inch deep, wide enough 
to admit the passage of the cultivator. The 
seeds should be dropped about half an inch 
apart in the rows, and they should be covered 
by drawing the fine earth from each side with 
both hands, forming a ridge one inch high. In 
six or eight days, if the season be favorable, the 
young plants will begin to break the ground. 
The ridge should then be removed with a fine 
rake. This method leaves the row clean and 
mellow, and gives the young plants a good start 
of the weeds, and greatly lessens the labor of 
the first hoeing. The plants should be well cul¬ 
tivated throughout the season. 
The hedge row should be plowed at least ten 
or twelve inches deep and eight or ten feet wide, 
in the fall; or, if the land is new, it would be 
well to cultivate a crop of corn or potatoes on 
it the year previous. If poor ridges occur in 
the row, they should be well trenched and ma¬ 
nured, to insure uniformity in the growth of the 
hedge. 
In the spring, just previous to setting the 
plants, the row should again be plowed and well 
harrowed. The plants may be lifted from the 
seed beds with facility by two persons with 
spades, one on each side of the row; care 
should be taken not to mutilate the roots. 
Shorten the roots to about eight or nine inches 
in length, and the tops to within one inch of the 
root. 
Stretch a line where the hedge is to stand. 
Assort the plants, and set those of uniform size 
together. In setting the plants, run a long- 
spade perpendicularly by the line to the depth 
of the root, making an opening without remov¬ 
ing the earth ; withdraw the spade, and insert 
the plant full as low as it grew in the seed bed. 
Press the earth to the root by entering the spade 
again just back of the plant, pressing the earth 
forward. Set the plants in this manner, about 
ten or twelve inches apart, according to the 
strength of the soil, in a single row. After set¬ 
ting, the ground should be firmly trod on each 
side of the plants and again leveled off. In or¬ 
der to secure the advantage of the requisite light 
and a free circulation of air, and to leave room 
for thorough cultivation, the hedge should never 
be planted within six or eight feet of any fence. 
The row should be kept free from weeds and 
be thoroughly cultivated during the season. 
One great error has been committed by nine- 
tenths of the persons who have attempted to 
grow the Osage hedge, and that is, they have 
been too impatient to complete the hedge before 
they had secured a foundation on which to base 
it. A hedge sufficiently firm and compact at 
the bottom, cannot be grown without severe and 
regicated cutting bach, in order to insure strength 
to the lower and lateral branches. This must 
neither be neglected nor delayed beyond the 
proper time, or all the previous labor will be 
lost. The season the plants are set in the row 
thej^ will require no regular pruning, but, should 
any of the plants assume a too vigorous up¬ 
right growth, they should be checked by crop¬ 
ping their tops with a long knife. This can be 
done as fast as a man can walk. The spring 
after the plants have been set, thej f should be 
cut off to within three or four inches of the 
ground. In consequence of cutting off the tops 
at the time of setting, each plant has produced 
three or four shoots. The second cutting will 
cause them to multiply to six or eight, nearly 
filling the space between the plants. 
Cultivation must be continued the second 
year as before. About the middle of June, or 
when the plants appear to be making the most 
vigorous growth, they must be again shortened 
back to within three or four inches of the last 
cutting. In order to give size and strength to 
the lateral branches, and secure a close and 
compact base to the hedge, these summer prun- 
ings must not be delayed. Continue to repeat 
the spring and summer primings until the 
fourth or fifth year, cutting off the side and 
bottom branches so as to form the hedge about 
three feet wide at the bottom, gradually nar¬ 
rowing toward the top, to about four or five 
feet in height, when it will be sufficiently form¬ 
idable to turn any stock upon the farm, and so 
close at the bottom as to render it difficult for a 
rabbit to pass through it. The experience of 
the hedger by this time must suggest the sub¬ 
sequent treatment. 
For trimming the hedge, a common hemp 
hook with a long handle and the hedging shears, 
will be found the most convenient implements. 
Where blanks occur in the hedge row, (which 
need not be the case if proper care is taken in 
assorting and setting the plants,) it is better to 
fill up the spaces with good-sized plants than 
to attempt to remedy the aspect by laying down 
the shoots of the neighboring plants. 
II. P. Byram. 
Louisville, Ky., Spirl 22tf, 1854. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
HOVEN IN CATTLE. 
In your note to my communication on Iloven 
in Cattle, j-ou speak of losing one of yours several 
years since by it, and rather doubt the efficacy 
of ichite-wash as a remedy. It will be seen 
that I advise the use of the white-wash as soon 
as the animal is found to be hoven, and that it 
might otherwise fail. But on my first trial with 
white-wash, the cow had been hoven two days 
before the white-wash was given, and many of 
the usual remedies had failed. 
In the case you speak of, while the cow was 
not sufficiently hoven to be suffocated or rup¬ 
tured, yet an inflammation was produced, which, 
with a return of the natural animal heat, stopped 
the generation of carbonic acid gas, but at the 
same time started another fermentation in the 
corn and stalks, by which all the juices were 
vaporized and carried off' by perspiration, leav¬ 
ing the contents in the state which you found 
them—dry. I think, however, that had your 
cow had sufficient lime water to drink during 
the first thirty-six hours that she was suffering, 
she would have got over the hoven. 
J. II. D. 
Morristown, N. J. 
- ®~e «- - 
Fruit. —The Dclawa/re State Journal says 
much anxiety is felt for the peach crop, as the 
trees were in full bloom when the late snow 
storm was experienced. The most reliable ac¬ 
counts from Ohio represent the peach and apple 
crop as unharmed. 
• - . — 
EiEN-YARD BUILDINGS. 
We cut the following excellent article from 
the Soil of the South, for it is as applicable to 
many parts of the north and west as to that re¬ 
gion. The remarks on the restlessness of land¬ 
holders, and their constant disposition to emi¬ 
grate, are well timed, and we hope they will 
command attention. Our people, especially 
along the frontiers, are entirely too nomadic in 
their dispositions and habits to make much 
progress in agriculture, or indeed in any thing 
else. 
No feature in our plantation economy, tends 
more to depreciate the respectability of our pro¬ 
fession, than the style of our barn-yard improve¬ 
ments. Not one planter in a hundred has a 
house which can be dignified with the name of 
a barn. The common arrangement is a rail-pen 
for corn, a rail-pen for shucks, fodder and oats 
in stacks. The evils attending this custom are 
numerous. It is at once the creature and the 
creator of that spirit of restlessness and emigra¬ 
tion which characterizes the whole planting fra¬ 
ternity. We do not make better improvements 
because we do not feel settled, and we do not 
feel settled because we do not make better im¬ 
provements. Almost any sort of a contrivance 
will do for a few years, and we conclude, cor¬ 
rectly, that a rail-pen will last until we can wear i 
out our lands. Let us build permanent im¬ 
provements and they will constitute an addi¬ 
tional incentive to improved culture of our 
lands. There is no surer means of settling a 
man, than for him to spend his time and occupy 
his mind in the improvement of his estate. 
Every house he builds, every ditch he digs, every ' 
tree he plants, are but so many ties to bind him 
to his home. In other words, by just as much 
as he improves his place, by just so much does 
he add to its attractions ; by just so much does ' 
he increase the disparity between what he has 
and what he can get on a new place. A planter 
who improves his plantation, invests in it, not 
only his money, but his thoughts, his tastes, and 
his affections. The first advantage, therefore, 
to be derived from making improvements is, 
that it will correct, to a large extent, that [ 
spirit of emigration among the planting com¬ 
munity which has almost depopulated some of 
the best agricultural districts of the South. 
Another consideration, and one which may I 
probably appeal more successfully, is, that we 
will make more money by making permanent 
improvements; first, because when they are 
once made, they are made for good, and secondly, 
because they save from actual loss, more than 
enough to pay the cost of their construction. 
A properly constructed barn will last for several 
generations, and, on a plantation of twenty-five 
hands, it will save enough in three years to pay 
for it. Nobody but one who has tried it, can 
estimate the amount of corn and shucks, and 
fodder and oats which are actually destroyed by j 
negligence in our ordinary barn-yard arrange- ! 
ments. There is enough shattered corn and 
rotten fodder and oats on a common-sized South¬ 
ern plantation, to sustain a respectable Yankee 
establishment. A Massachusetts farmer would 
not ask a better living than the loss about a 
Georgia planter’s barn-yard. With the privi¬ 
lege of picking up our leavings, he could afford 
to pay one hundred dollars per acre for the en¬ 
virons of our horse lot, and make more clear 
money than we do with an investment of ten 
dollars per acre in our cotton fields. 
In the construction of barns especial refer¬ 
ence should be had to convenience. In this re¬ 
spect, we are an age behind our Northern friends, 
not only in our farm-yard, but in our residences. 
I prefer to have every thing in the barn-yard, 
as far as practicable, under the same shelter. It 
is objected to this plan, that it is risking too 
much by fire to connect so many things under 
