AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
177 
the most severe pruning when young. He advises 
that the first year’s growth, after the plants are 
set in the hedge-row, should be cut back the next 
Spring, nearly or quite to the ground-line or col¬ 
lar of the tree. At the Summer pruning, performed 
in June, the plants are mown off with a horizon¬ 
tal cut (so as to leave the lowest lateral branches) 
4 or 6 inches above the Spring cut. 
At each semi-annual pruning, a hight of about 
6 inches is gained, and the horizontal is succeed¬ 
ed by the pyramidal shape as represented by the 
lines in the engraving. This system, undoubt¬ 
edly the best one, is applicable to all deciduous 
plants. 
honey locust , (Gleditschia triacanthos), fig. 4. 
This plant, which gives considerable promise 
of success, is a native of several of the Western 
States, Ohio, Kentucky, &c. It is perfectly hardy 
in Summer and Winter. The difficulty with this 
plant has been, that it bears the requisite crowd¬ 
ing with evident impatience, and being, in its 
best estate, some 80 feet high, is sometimes kill¬ 
ed by the attempt to reduce it to suitable dimen¬ 
sions for the hedge. 
Fig. 4 represents a young, vigorous Honey Lo¬ 
cust ; its formidable thorns covering even the 
older wood of the trunk and branches. These 
thorns, shown more distinctly in fig. 5, often grow 
to be more than a foot in length, with lateral 
thorns of six or eight inches. Having had some ex¬ 
perience of the character of these “ weapons of de¬ 
fence,” (in Western pasture fields, not in orchards) 
when a bare-footed urchin,we should rest in perfect 
composure were our pear-orchard and vineyard 
surrounded by a hedge of Gleditscliia triacanthos. 
No biped or quadruped marauder would dare its 
thorns. It bears clusters of crooked pendulous 
pods, 12 to 15 inches long, containing hard, bean¬ 
shaped seeds, imbedded in a pulpy substance, 
which is very sweet and palatable, at least to 
the juvenile taste. Dr. Warder recommends set¬ 
ting this plant three feet apart in the hedge-row, 
and attributes the failures with it to too close 
planting and subsequent neglect of trimming. 
From the very start, the Honey Locust hedge 
should be cut back to within 2 inches of the ground 
which will cause it to throw out numerous shrub¬ 
bery branches and counteract its tendency to form 
trees. All strong shoots having a tendency to 
over-top their neighbors, should be headed back 
as soon as discovered. 
The subsequent pruning is performed as recom¬ 
mended for the Osage Orange, fig. 3, and should 
be even more promptly attended to than that 
plant. William Reed, of Elizabeth-town, N. J., 
who has had twenty years’ experience with this 
and other hedge-plants, says he is satisfied that 
the Honey Locust is the best for Farm Hedges, 
being perfectly hardy, a rapid grower, easily kept, 
and from its thorny character, a most efficient 
barrier. 
The young plants of the Honey Locust are, in 
most localities, easily and cheaply procured of 
the nurserymen, and when this is the case, few 
farmers will find it convenient to raise their own 
seedlings; but where they are not obtainable, they 
may be raised from the seed. The great difficulty 
in this process is in causing the seed to germinate. 
By pouring over them when they are spread thinly 
in a shallow vessel, boiling water, and allowing 
them to stand in a warm place a few days, they 
may be planted in the Spring with a certainty of 
having good strong plants above the ground in a 
fortnight. 
The foliage of the Honey Locust (fig. 6) has a 
beautiful feathery, graceful character, and the 
male and female blossoms, like the Maclura, are 
borne on different trees. 
- * « - - ' * 1 <> r ***—-» » - 
Destruction of Forests- 
Having given our plea, once and again, for the 
preservation of the forests, we now wish simply 
to record a confirmation of our views, which we 
find in one of the daily journals. It appears that 
a learned Frenchman, M. Brequeril, of Paris, has 
lately published an elaborate treatise on the influ¬ 
ence of forests, treating the subject both histori¬ 
cally and scientifically. His conclusions are, in 
brief: “ that the forests act upon the climate of a 
country as frigorific causes; that they also act 
as protection against winds, and as a means 
of preserving living springs; and that they 
prevent the degradation or wearing away of the 
mountains. They also act as protection against 
the communication from place to place of conta¬ 
gious diseases.” 
-— *-—O'©*—-- «.- 
How to get up a Country Park. 
“ All work and no play,” according to the old ad¬ 
age, “makes Jack a dull boy;” and as we have 
given our readers, since the first of January, a 
tolerably thorough drilling into the labors of rural 
life, we propose to change our discipline for the 
moment, and enjoy a trifle of recreation. We arc 
the more inclined to this from receiving a com¬ 
munication from a distant subscriber, detailing 
his efforts at Park making within a few months 
past; and as it may impart a useful hint or two 
to such of our suburban readers as now and then 
make an attempt in that line, we give it as writ¬ 
ten, with the heading as above : 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
I learn by the New-York papers that your city 
government is getting up a great affair in the way 
of a Park, containing some eight-hundred acre, 1 * 
of what is now flat, hilly, rocky, sedgy, peaty- 
mossy, swaly, woody—in fact, all sorts of land? 
besides sundry puddles of water, with which the 
Island of Manhattan is blessed in so compact, and 
restricted a compass. It is going to cost, I hear, 
several millions of dollars for the land, and ever- 
so-much more to lay out, engineer, cut-and-fill, 
plant, water, and road it. A wonderful thing, no 
doubt it will be, when finished—worth all its cost 
to the sw’arming population ofyour great teeming 
town, and a future model, I trust, in its extent 
and perfection of taste to the parks of other large 
American cities which are to follow it. 
There are some private parks in our country, 
too, but not half so many as there ought to be; 
and having a little inclination that wmy, and a right 
spot for it, your humble servant has lately tried 
his hand in an attempt at one on his own occount. 
Know, therefore, Mr. Editor, that some twenty 
years ago I purchased in the neighborhood—say 
half a dozen miles distant—of a thriving town, 
faraway in the country, nearly a thousand acres 
of wild land. It was not all woods, exactly, for 
half a dozen families of those valuable creatures 
called “ Squatters,” had there pitched their tents 
—cabins rather—at a much earlier day. They 
