Vol. VI. ALBANY, APRIL, 1858. No. IV. 
Published by Luther Tucker & Son, 
EDITORS AND PROPRIETORS. 
Associate Ed., J. J. THOMAS, Union Springs, N. Y. 
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A New Series was commenced in 1853, and the five vo¬ 
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The Illustrated Annual Register'of Rural Affairs 
—144 pp. 12 mo. — price 25 cents — $2.00 per dozen. This 
work was commenced in 1855, and the nos. for 1855, ’56 
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Osage Orange Hedge. 
[Prof. J. B. Turner, of Illinois, to whom the whole 
country is so largely indebted for the introduction of 
the Osage Orange as a hedge plant, has kindly furnish¬ 
ed the following interesting and valuable remarks, in 
reply to the several inquiries which our readers so often 
make, in relation to this hedge, and they fully accord 
with the limited observations and experiments which 
we have made in the more eastern portions of the 
Union.] 
J. J. Thomas, Esq.—In reply to your inquiries, I 
would say that I have watched with much interest, the 
prospects and progress of hedges in the West for some 
years past. For more than twenty years I have been 
fully convinced that with us on the prairies, there was 
no possible alternative, and that we must hedge with 
something , for we have no stone, and in many place's 
not half timber enough to keep up our buildings and 
railroads, to say nothing of fencing ; and as to herding 
stock where hundreds ot thousands of head of cattle 
and swine must pass through the country in all direc¬ 
tions, every year, and almost every month in the year, 
on their way to the great markets, or to the cattle- 
dealers, it would seem to be absurd. What would pro¬ 
tect our crops against the lean, and gaunt, and starv¬ 
ing droves of those Mexican rangers, who sometimes 
pass through these regions with one or two thousand of 
these lean kine in a single drove? A man may well 
bless his stars in such conditions, if he is able to keep 
his corn, hay and fruit, when locked up in his barn or 
cellar, to say nothing of leaving it all out on the public 
common. And though our own citizens are, with scarce 
a single exception, honest and upright men, still if a 
man can now keep these hosts and troops of foreign emi¬ 
grants, movers, and drovers, from tearing down a ten 
rail fence and driving thorough his fields, at any rate, 
he will do well. For these and similar reasons, I have 
deemed hedging with us indispensable, and have made 
many efforts to introduce it; and after some ten years 
experiment and trial in our early history, I became sat¬ 
isfied fully, that the Osage Orange was the best and 
only plant that in this place we could profitably use. I 
accordingly wrote and published on the subject in the 
Prairie Farmer, Patent Office Reports, and other pa¬ 
pers, procured seed, raised plants both for myself and 
others, hedged all my own lands and grounds, and fur¬ 
nished plants and seed to my brothel's and personal 
friends, while the “big public” still ridiculed the en¬ 
terprise as a “ morus multicaulis ” speculation, and 
would buy neither plants or seed. The result is, that 
on the place where I now live, I have no other fence 
whatever but the hedge, except around my barn-yards, 
and have not had for years. My brother, Mr. Avery 
Turner, of Quincy, also has the hedge on his farm 
mostly or wholly, and good hedges are now quite easy 
to be found, and poor ones too. A small farm of 120 
acres, lying ten miles from this, I hedged before I sold 
it, all into 20 acre lots; another farm, southeast, of 800 
acres, I began to hedge into 80 acre lots, but sold it 
before it was completed. I have also made a mile or 
two of hedge on Governor Duncan’s grounds, and the 
Illinois College Grounds, immediately joining or near 
to my own homestead. This I did for the sake of im¬ 
proving my own place, in part. I have also sold lat¬ 
terly, from one to two million of the plants to my cus¬ 
tomers annually for some years past, mostly in this 
vicinity, but some in almost every State in the Union; 
and shall sell about the same quantity this spring, 
mostly to old customers, or in their neighborhood, and 
at the same old prices in spite of the hard times. 
Such then is my general view—my field of observa¬ 
tion and experience. Now as to your specific questions: 
1. It ought to take four years, on good rich prairie 
land, and no more, to make a good stock hedge; on 
barren or poorer land, of course it would take propor- 
tionably longer, unless manure was used. 
2. In my opinion, a common farm hedge should never 
be clipped at all, at least nothing more than to cut 
back overgrown shoots, to even the growth, till it is 
three , or at least two years old—as the way is to begin 
at the bottom—and the first thing to be formed is a 
vigorous root, and for this end, of course the less clip- 
