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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
Hedge Plants. 
Jt cannot be denied, that in the old feua, Fences 
vs. Hedges, the champions of the Hedge carried the 
hearts of the public with them. All poetical feel¬ 
ing, and the sense of the beautiful speak clearly 
in favor of the green living wall—the home of 
the birds and of wild flowers. Gladly would we 
dispense with wood-fences, leaning, tottering, de¬ 
caying lines of tired-looking posts, strung toge¬ 
ther with moss-covered rails ; gymnastic schools 
to educate your own and your neighbor’s stock in 
sundry arts of hoof and snout, to leap over, and 
root under, to slip a “ rider ” or let down a “ bar 
we certainly should never have discovered one- 
half of the talents of our critters if it were not for 
the old rail fences. 
An appeal is made to our pockets too. Curious 
chaps figure out the cost of fences, until actually 
it would seem that the only obstacle to universal 
wealth and happiness among us farmers, is the 
waste of labor and money in making and repair¬ 
ing our fences. One hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars are annually expended by the farmers of 
America, for sustaining the fences, says one calcu¬ 
lator ; and ten millions by the farmers of New York 
Stale alone, every year ! 
We believe that at least a small per centage of 
this outlay may be saved by substituting hedges 
in some parts of the country ; and although no 
one plant, in our opinion, is of universal adapta¬ 
tion, we propose to give, in this and the next num¬ 
ber of the Agriculturist, some illustrations of 
those plants most likely to succeed in this coun¬ 
try. 
The qualifications of a good hedge plant are: 
First —An ability to withstand the greatest ex¬ 
tremes of heat and cold, in the lat¬ 
itude where the hedge is to be grown. 
Many plants which bear well the 
frosts of Winter, lose their leaves, or 
are checked in their growth by se¬ 
vere heat or drouths. 
Second —It must grow rapidly when 
young, and have great longevity, not 
subject to disease or the attacks of 
insects. 
Third —It must bear well the oper¬ 
ation of pruning, and the close crowding ol the 
hedge-row. 
Fourth —For an outside fence, at least, it should 
possess “an armature of thorns.” 
the osage orange, (Maclura aurantioca). 
For the middle States, say south of 39°, and at 
some points a little further north, the Osage 
Orange, perhaps, approaches more nearly than any 
other plant the perfect standard, though, as we 
showed in the Agriculturist of August, 1857, it is 
not to be depended upon generally, north of 40°. 
Fig. 1 represents a twig with leaves of this 
plant. The leaves are about 3 inches long 
and 2 wide, of a bright, shining green. The spines 
are produced in the axils of the leaves. The 
fruit (fig. 2), from which its common name is de¬ 
rived, has very much the external appearance of 
an orange, and when ripe is of a rich yellow 
hue, rendering the tree quite an ornamental 
object; but it is not eatable, being of a tough 
fibrous character, and quite insipid. 
The plant is dioecious, i.e., bears the male and 
female blossoms on different trees—the female 
tree producing the larger fruit, with perfect seeds. 
The male plant is said to produce smaller fruit 
with abortive seeds. 
The wood has great hardness and elasticity, 
and being used by the Indians for bows, is some¬ 
times called “ Bow-wood,” or Bois d'Arc. The 
sap in the young wood and leaves is of a milky 
character, and, according to Loudon, contains a 
similar gum to the India-rubber, or caoutchouc. 
The cause of many of the failures to produce a 
good hedge with this plant, is undoubtedly th«? 
want of the proper attention to the pruning. War¬ 
der, in his new work on hedges, gives us the 
proper shape for a full-grown hedge, the one re¬ 
presented in fig. 3. The form of the pyramid, or 
rather of the Gothic arch, can only be secured by 
Fig. 3. 
Section of a well made Hedge. The line c. shows where the hedge is to be cut in June of the 2d year ; 
d. line of cutting in the Spring of the 3d year ; f. e. g. in June of 3d year; f, h. g in June of the 4th year. 
