a few feet of it. Thus protected, good hedges have stood for twenty-five
years where the thermometer has often shown ten or twelve degrees below
zero, and sometimes lower.

No hedge is more commonly mismanaged than the Osage orange. It is
planted in imperfectly prepared ground; vigorous and feeble plants are
planted indiscriminately, cultivation and pruning are omitted or not
done thoroughly, resulting in broken and irregular lines. When more care
is given, the hedge is nearly spoiled by being pruned too wide at the
top, the heavy shade above causing meagre growth and openings below. It
should be pruned in wedge shape, but shearing is objectionable as
causing a thick and short growth of leaves at the exterior, excluding
light from the inside and causing bare branches there. Cutting back more
irregularly with a knife allows the growth of interior foliage, and
gives more breadth to the hedge. The sheared hedge presents an unnatural
stiffness in ornamental grounds; but skillfully cut back with the knife
it has more of the beauty of natural form. The manner of pruning is very
important, both as regards utility and beauty. For farm barriers hedges
do not require so elaborate care. Another mode of treatment has been
adopted in the Western States. The trees are trimmed and the main stems
trained upright for a few years. They are then cut half off at the
ground and bent over at an angle of thirty degrees with the ground, a
tree being left upright at distances of four or five feet, and the
inclined ones interwoven among them, a straight line of trees being thus
formed. The tops are then cut off about three feet high. New shoots
spring up in abundance and form an impenetrable growth, as many as
fifty having been counted from a single plant the first year. The top is
cut to within a few inches each year of its previous height. Hedges made
in this way have no gaps.