Show hardiness of the osage orange BENJAMIN banjamin HODGE of buffalo gives in a late lale number of the horticulturist an unfavorable opinion 0 of f the osage orange as a hedge plant for the nort north b derived chiefly from om the following facts the first season the growth ws was nearly two feet the whole of which was killed by the subsequent winter the roots remaining uninjured the second year 1850 shoots were thrown up three or four feet high from one to two feet of which were killed last laet winter although though jal not a severe one after experiments continued for more than ten years in a climate where the thermometer is it not 6 or 7 deg below zero the writer of these remarks has been induced to adopt a different opinion solitary trees it is true are often one third or one half killed and young seedlings very often down to the ground but there are three substantial reasons why this liability is not a formidable objection to a hedge in the first place the killing does not extend further furt lier down than the young hedge should be cropped or sheared secondly when growing n 0 thickly together the shoots protect each other in a re remarkable degree f from rom the effects of the weather and thirdly when kept sheared the growth ceases to be succulent and tender ond nd the shoots are not killed to any extent whatever in a hedge which has stood two years partly untrimmed mcd and which was made of three year plants the long and succulent shoots which had shut shot up alone to some height were observed this spring to be killed at the top but the smaller and thicker shoots below were in leaf to their utmost extremities the fact that a growth of three or four feet was made the second year as above stated indicates a fertile soil and a consequent succulence not favorable to endurance intense frost the result is very different on a soil of moderate fertility and with cropped shoots the ithe wall of impenetrable armor which the osage orange presents by its profusion of sharp thorns thorng renders it particularly valuable as a boundary for fruit gardens 5 and it is believed that its less rapid growth grow th at the north will remove the objection sometimes made to it in the middle and western states of drawing too strongly on the fertility fertility lit y of the adjacent soil itis it is not expected that in frosty valleys and in such localities as are usually too cold for fbi the peach crop this hedge will annii er but in other places there is so strong reason to believe its fitness th that at further experiments to say the least are fully warranted cultivator |