The Osage Hedge. One of the major events of game conservation hisbory 
in fllinois has been the progressive tearing out of the Osage orange hedges 
widely planted by farmers in the days when land and labor was cheap and cash 
for fencewire scarce. Agricultural authorities have advised their removal 
on the grounds of land used, harborage ir insects, harborage for San Hose 
Scale, and cost of maintenance, The gas tractor has of late made it easy 
to comply with their advice. 
All of these charges against the osage hedge are of course true, 
yet i doubt if they are the whole storys The hedge may have been condemned 
on a hasty examination of only a part of the evidence. Much depends on the 
point of view. Why are hedges still universal in England where land is much 
scarcer? In view of agricultural overproduction, is it really a benefit to 
the community and the individual .to insist on every square yard producing 
erops? As against the debit represented by. land-waste and harborage far 
pests, what credit should be allowed. for windbreak service, post supply, 
and harborage of game and insectivorous birds? Has anybody ever tried to 
make the osage hedge more. efficient by improving the original placement of 
the sems and devising a mechanical trimmer to reduce labor costs? 
Lodge told me his hedges cost 10¢ per rod for 2 trimmings per year. 
Ne figures a hedge wastes a rod wide strip of soil, 
Dunlap told me the champion Harvester Co, once put out a hedge 
trimmer with a cutter-bar 3'-6' long which performed the vertical trimming 
successfully. It did not do the horizontal trimming on top, which had to 
be performed by hand. Doubtless a practical machine to do all the 
trimming could be devised. 
Lodge showed me a hedge “woven” years ago by a specialist which 
has been kept trimmed and which today presents a nearly pig-tight fence. It 

