THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
found about this new wonder, and managed 
to draw out some chunks of caution. For in¬ 
stance, is is stated that 16 gallons of berries 
were picked about Sept. 1st from two rows 
six or eight rods long, in this neighborhood. 
That is more than I have ever picked at auy 
season from the same amount of ground. And 
then we are informed that one man here fre- 
queutly borrowed a hoi'se and buggy to go 
after a few berries for a sick child, proving 
they were not on the market, although there 
is more than an acre of plants. Moreover, 
personal inquiry elicits the fact that no berries 
were ever marketed out of season from that 
patch, and the knowledge of this has saved me 
§3 at least. c. p. 
Kirksville, Mo. 
!3Ui)oiiciiliural. 
THE HARDY CATALPA. 
Its hardiness — value; proof that it is distinct 
from the Eastern Catalpa; history of Mr. 
Douglas's connection with it. 
Readers of the Rural New-Yorker are 
well aware that we have both the common 
.Catalpa and the Hardy Catalpa (C. speciosa) 
at the Rural Grounds. On page 717 of the 
Rural for 1884, we gave careful illustrations 
of the dowel’s of each, and pointed out the 
differences between the flowers, time of bloom¬ 
ing, leaves, habit and hardiness of both kinds. 
The following interesting and instructive let¬ 
ter from the veteran Robert Douglas, of Wau¬ 
kegan, Ills., to our friend T. T. Lyon, of Mich., 
is presented to our readers with the permission 
of both gentlemen.— Eds. 
“I have often felt like getting out of patience 
with some of the Eastern writers for their 
prejudice against this Western tree; but when 
1 consider that there are only three writers, 
and they are all my personal friends, and 
know that they are all perfectly honest in 
their convictions, and are really friends of 
the West as much as of the East, I am con¬ 
vinced that local prejudice does not enter into 
their minds at all. I have traveled long jour¬ 
neys with two of them in the West (Meehan 
oud Hoopes), climbed the mountains aud slept 
on the plains with them, and it is a common 
saying in the West that you never know a 
man till you have camped with him on the 
plains. 
The third writer, A. S. Fuller, I am not ac¬ 
quainted with, but I should like to show him, 
near his old home in Wisconsin, a Western 
Catalpa standing on a bleak knoll, where it 
has stood 12 or 15 years, and have him count 
the yeara’ growths aud see how it has stood 
the terrible Winters; while the so-called iron¬ 
clad apple trees have died outright. After 
that, with friends Meehan and Hoopes, we 
might go down to Princeton, Hlinois, aud put 
a measure around a Western catalpa tree, 
grown from seeds collected by Arthur Bryant 
at New Madrid, aud they would find that it 
measured over three feet in diameter, stump 
high. They would also leant that Eastern 
(Jatalpas were planted freely in Prince¬ 
ton, and that many years ago they had all 
succumbed to the severe Winters. 1 would 
take them to Kt. Louis, w here Eastern men all 
visit Shaw’s Garden: at the end of the street 
ca track on our journey thither, I will show 
them a street planted with the Eastern Cat 
alpa, where they can see bow the poor mis¬ 
shapen trees have suffered from killing back 
during severe Winters. 
I will give you a short history of my con¬ 
nection wit.: the Western Catalpa: During 
February and March, 1877, I received letters 
from E. E. Barney, of Dayton, Ohio, Dr. 
Warder, of Ohio, Suel Foster, of Iowa, and 
Prof. C. S. Sargent, of Massachusetts, all 
urging me to grow the Catalpa speciosa in 
large quantities, believing it to be the most 
valuable tree. They did not all call it Bpeciosa, 
although Dr. Warder had given it that name 
in 1883, Mr. Barney called it the Early- 
blooming Catalpa, owing to its flowering three 
weeks earlier than the common sorts. [The 
Hardy Catalpa blooms at the R. G. while the 
common is in bud.—E ds.] Kuel Foster called 
it the Hardy Catalpa, for the reasou that his 
partner came into the office one morning in 
Spring and told him they had two kinds of 
Catalpa. Mr. Foster dissented 5 they went 
into the nursery, and found that one lot was 
uninjured and the other lot killed to the 
ground, and that the uninjured had come 
from Indiana; the tender ones from the East. 
I traveled weeks with Dr. Warder studying 
the two trees. I confess I was surprised when 
I saw the marked difference, and wondered 
how botanists had failed so long to make a 
distinction. It seemed to me that any man 
that could distinguish the difference between 
the bark on a W bite Elm and an American 
Beech could not help seeing the same differ¬ 
ence in these two trees. 
Mr. Bryant went with us (Dr. Warder and 
myself) to examine a grove of a few acres 
near the Illinois Central Railroad down in 
La BaJle County. Ill, The Doctor said he had 
not seen a plantation in Europe or America 
that would compare with it. The owner told 
us that lie had sent down to South Indiana and 
had the seeds collected in the woods, and was 
growing them for fence posts, as he found 
that oak posts rotted. We went home with 
Mr. Bryant, and then went through Illinois, 
Iowa and Nebraska, wherever we could learn 
that the trees were growing. I left Dr. 
Warder in Nebraska, he going to Wyoming 
and through Kansas and Missouri, studyiug 
these two trees. I found the Eastern kind 
showing the effect of severe Winters. I met 
Mr. Barney by appointment in Chicago the 
week after I left Dr. Warder. He told me 
how he labored to introduce this tree, aud the 
importance he attached to it, and I had pre¬ 
viously learned from Dr. Warder how Mr. 
Barney had spent both time and money lav¬ 
ishly without any pecuniary interest in it. 
1 started the next week with one of my sous 
for South Indiana, Western Kentucky, etc. 
We explored the woods. IVe hired Germans, 
Irishmen, poor w'hitesand negroes,and saw the 
the seeds taken from the native trees. We 
remained as long as we could possibly endure 
the hardship, and then grew the trees by the 
millions, advertising them as hardy up to 42 
degrees north latitude. About three years ago, 
finding them hardy further north, we adver¬ 
tised them as hardy up to 43 degrees. When 
I was East last Summer, tw r o letters followed 
me with an article clipped from the N. Y. 
Sun, telling how Western men were flooding 
the West with this tree which is not hardy. 
I confess I w as annoyed, as both these letters 
were from Eastern men expressing sympathy 
with the poor unfortunate West, and kindly 
sending me a copy of the article. 
Many of our Eastern friends do not under¬ 
stand the West. The East proper, covering 
only a limited space set among hills and cities 
and lakes and rivers and adjoining the sea¬ 
board, is ail nearly alike, and what is hardy 
in one part of it Ls comparatively hardy in 
all. Not so in the West; and this is why they 
make what seems to us most glariug mistakes. 
It might be said that there is no tree hardy in 
the West! True, there are a few species, note 
ably the Red Cedar, the Box Elder and the 
Black Cherry which grow from Florida far 
up into the Northwest, the two first named up 
into Northern Montana aud beyond. But do 
any of our Eastern friends think that seeds of 
such an introduction in seven short years as 
the Catalpa speciosa of Warder. We have 
flattering reports of it from the East Indies, 
China, South Africa, Australia and Europe.” 
SHRUBS SUITABLE FOR HEDGE 
PLANTING. 
Requirements for a suitable lodge plant; 
the Japan Quince; the sweet briar; the 
barberry; the honeysuckle and deutzias; 
the pri vet; an easily made hedge. 
One practical way of multiplying and con¬ 
serving leafiness, and so of remedying the se¬ 
rious faults about which even jocose Dr. 
Holmes speaks seriously (see Rural of Octo¬ 
ber 24, page 711, foot of first column), would 
be the general planting, along permanent 
lines of wire fence, of hedge plants of some 
easily grown and kept and enduring sort 
which, even if left untrimmed, will not 
sprawl or sucker or attain over 10 feet in 
hight. It need not be thorny, or so stiff as to 
stop breaeby animals, as one barbed wire 
within it will do this perfectly, if stretched 
30 to 35 inches above the ground. Yet a cer¬ 
tain stiffness is necessary, or pigs, dogs aud 
poultry may push through at the base. A 
wire near the ground will help to prevent this, 
and if the plants are either set close or headed 
down close to the ground until thick with 
shoots, there will be no trespass of the sort. 
Even breaeby boys or men will go far around 
and resist much tempta ion befox-e undertak¬ 
ing to get over a thin 4 foot hedge that has 
a barbed wire in its heart. 
Other requisites iu an ideal hedge-plant are 
that it be not liable to be browzed by cattle, 
that its stems be firm and permanent, and its 
leaves evergreeu, or nearly so, to give better 
shelter to the land and its workers ou each side. 
Ease of propagation and ready growth are 
important essentials. Beauty of foliage and 
trimuess of growth are also worthy of consid¬ 
eration. Hard}' shrubs that combine more or 
less of these requirements are the common 
privet, the barberry, the sweet briar, the 
Japan quince, the shrub honeysuckle and the 
taller deutzias. They have merit in about the 
order named. The Japan quince is exceed¬ 
ingly handsome in flower, and it flowers well 
even where closely trimmed. Its leaves, too, 
are of a rich green. But its stems are strag¬ 
gling,very pliantand short-lived individually. 
It is also liable to be cut off by the borer, and 
it suckers occasionally. It is also rather ex¬ 
pensive. 
these trees collected in Florida would produce 
trees that would be hardy here? Let us not 
be severe on them if they do, I had lived a 
quarter of a century in the West liefore I 
knew to the contrary. I made the first dis¬ 
covery when I purchased 10 bushels of Red 
Cedar berries from the South. They germi¬ 
nated freely aud exceeded our Northern seed¬ 
lings in growth; but killed back in the Win¬ 
ter. I sold them at half-price to a nursery¬ 
man that had a Southern trade; but when we 
shipped them at three years old, they showed 
so badly that we sent them to him only charg¬ 
ing him for the boxes. Another case out of 
several I will mention. We bought a large 
lot of Black-walnuts, grown at Makanda, in 
our own State, They were planted side by 
side with a lot collected in our own locality. 
In the Autumn, standing side by side, the 
Makanda seedlings were double the size of 
ours. The next Spring ours were alive to the 
terminal buds; the Makanda plants were killed 
to the ground, 
Mr. Josiah Hoopes will not admit that there 
are two species of Catalpa. Mr. Fuller says, 
in his work on forestry, that the question 
whether our Western tree is a species may 
well be left for scientists to decide. Surely 
Mr. Fuller must know that it has been decided 
by a scientist who stands iu the front rank 
both in this country and Europe: Dr. George 
Engelmaun, has decided it, and named the 
hardy Western species Catalpa speciosa. Mr. 
Fuller iu his new work, referring to this “so- 
called Western Catalpa,” does not even uotice 
the difference in the bark, although he has 
seen both trees when of large size. I have a 
letter from Richard Sykes, owner of the large 
plantations at, Larehwood, planted by the 
veteran Jesse Fell, and in it he says: “The 
Catalpa speciosa trees seven years old, 
flowered aud bore seed which ripened thor¬ 
oughly; the pods were 18 inches long. This 
is u good showing fur latitude 43 deg. 30 min.” 
I have a letter from F. VV r . Wood wal'd, of 
Eau Claire, Wis., former editor of the Horti¬ 
culturist, in which he says: “Catalpa speciosa 
planted iu ’84, is seven feet high and 2)£ 
inches in diameter. The ends of the shoots 
were killed back lust W inter (45 w below zero) 
about three inches only. I think 1 can report 
it as hardy here. Norway Spruces were so 
severely injured alongside of the catalpa, 
that they made no growth the past Summer; 
presenting only a rosette of buds at the ends 
of the branches,” Surely po tree ever had 
The sweet briar has its merits? of thorni¬ 
ness, and of very agreeable fragrance, and 
very numerous stems; but it is liable to 
lose its leaves in hot, dry weather, and they 
are pallid in color. 
The barbery is handsome, dense, enduring, 
and will grow aud live in the poorest, driest 
soil. It is prickly too. It is doubly hand¬ 
some in flower and fruit; but trimming checks 
its flowering and robs it of beauty. It, and 
the sweet briar can bo grown from seeds, 
but not with certainty, and they require 
some years to make a full hedge. 
The honeysuckle aud the deutzia are 
best adapted for fancy hedges—to contrast 
with a dark bank of evergreens, or to dot 
into a hedge here and there for pleasing 
variety, brightening up a dark line. 
The privet poscsses the most points of mer¬ 
it, indeed all of the essential ones, It grows 
as well and as surely from cuttings as any 
willow. The plants should be pushed down 
ftrpily into the soil in Spring—it having been 
well cleaned and mellowed in the Fall—and at 
any distance apart, under eight or ten inches iu 
the line of the hedge. Its cost is, therefore, 
very little. It, is nearly evergeen, and har¬ 
dy throughout the North, grows up rapidly 
but stops at about teu feet. The Califor¬ 
nian, or oval-leafed privet has leaves still 
more glossy and of lighter green; it is rather 
less hardy. 
A friend here completed a good chicken- 
proof hedge of common privet within one 
week. He stretched three wires about eight, 
16, and 30 inches from the surface, the upper 
one barbed. Then, having plenty of young 
rods of privet- in a hedge-row, which had been 
headed down close and then purposely left to 
make a full growth without auy trimming, 
he cut quantities of these, from two to four 
feet long, and pushed their somewhat sharp¬ 
ened ends about six inches down into the well 
mellowed, and cleaned soil along tho line of 
the hedge, first passing them through the 
wires from alternate sides, so as to have a 
weft like thar, of a basket. They were put in 
about two inches apart, to debar young chick¬ 
ens from getting through. It was an effective 
hedge at once, and was soon “a thing of beau¬ 
ty,” as well as of use. The shelter afforded by 
such hedges is worth many times their small 
cost, while they are one of the greatest of 
landscape adornments, and essential to cozy 
comfort about a country home in our climate. 
Tyrone, Pa, W. u. w. 
IJotcs' from the ^Itu-aTs' 
FEEDING LAMBS. 
HOW OFTEN SHALL WE FEED? 
It is claimed by some that twice a day is 
sufficiently often to feed; that by feeding the 
hay and grain near together, and these feeds 
as nearly 12 hours apart as possible, the lamb 
has ample time to re-chew its food and the 
stomach time to rest Indore the next meal, 
and that the lambs will both gain faster and 
make a larger gain for the food consumed. 
This is a fallacy that works to the injury of 
every one who may follow it. Ruminating 
animals are seldom without food in some of 
tho compartments of their stomachs, unless 
fed on starvation diet, which no one would 
recommend, at least for fattening animals, and 
no matter how often fed, the food, as a rule, 
does not pass into tho fourth or digesting 
stomach until after it is chewed the second 
time. Aud if the lamb is fed, as it should be, 
at least seven times, it will not spend over 
seven or eight hours in eating, leaving ntleast 
16 hours for rumination and rest of the 
stomach, which is ample. Aud as the inter¬ 
val between the evening and the morning 
feeds must necessarily be not less than 10 or 
more hours, the first feeding should lie not 
later thau six o'clock (five would be better), 
and the shepherd will be very sure to find the 
lambs alert and showing by their greediness 
that they have had ample rest and are ready 
fora good, “square meal.” We prefer hay 
for the first feed, so that it muy be quickly 
eaten, the stomach quickly filled and the 
coarser food ready to mix with the grain 
ration and returned with it for remastication. 
If the hay is good aud only a proper amount 
be given, it will be eaten m one hour, aud the 
sheep will be ready for their grain. After 
this is given, the water troughs should be 
looked after aud replenished, if empty, and 
the lambs then left in quiet until half-past 
nine, at which time roots should be fed; these 
should have liceu made very free from dirt 
and cut fine, but, cut into irregular pieces or 
cubes in preference to pulping or being cut 
into slices. We use a cutter with circular 
knives, which in cutting the roots break them 
into pieces the size of hickory nuts. 
At noon the racks should be filled with good, 
bright straw. If grained as high as is advis¬ 
able, they will eat a large proportion of this; 
especially is this true if the straw has beeu 
barn-housed, for no matter bow bright it may 
be or how well kept iu the stack, they will not 
fail to detect the difference, and will show 
their preference, by the larger consumption of 
that barn-kept. The troughs should now be 
looked over and refilled with water, and the 
lambs be left undisturbed until (where roots are 
fed, os they should be, twice daily,) three 
o’clock when the second feed should be giveu. 
At five l*. M. the racks aud grain trough 
should lie swept out,and the second grain ration 
giveu, and at six The racks should be filled with 
hay, or, if desirable to feed corn fodder, that 
should be giveu at this time. If the second 
feeding of roots be omitted, which we do not 
by uny means advise, the afternoon grain-feed 
may lie given at half-post four, and followed 
with hay or other forage at half-past five. 
Thus it will be seen that vve have marked 
out seven distinct feeds each day, and have 
provided for keeping the shepherd busy and 
“at, his post.” That lambs will eat more when 
fed often we have uot the least doubt, but 
that they will make a gain corresponding to 
what they eat, and more, too. we have proven 
by careful experiments more than once, aud 
this course will, by the more rapid gam of 
the limbs, more amply repay the shepherd 
whose heart is in the work and who begrudges 
no labor if he can see the lambs “doing their 
liest.” 
Our friend J. F. Kenelig, of Cumberland 
Co., Pa., wishes to know' why sheep lose then- 
wool, it commencing to loosen around their 
necks and along their bellies? There is only 
one cause of this. The sheep at some time 
have been losing flesh, and they are now gain¬ 
ing. The great difficulty w-ith most sheep- 
keepers is in allowing the sheep to run too 
long at pasture without grain. After a severe 
freeze the grass has but very little substance, 
and although the sheep may fill themselves so 
as to look full, they are rapidly falling away, 
uud when put into winter-quarters ami well 
kept, they begin to thrive ami this starts the 
wool more or less. There is no remedy only 
to grain a little while they are at pasture, or 
put them iuto the barns sooner. 
Our good friend M. M. Willson says he fol¬ 
lowed our directions in papering and sheeting 
the outside of his barn, aud still when the 
mercury went 10 degrees below zero, tho wa- 
