Dear Sir: I have just received the Horticulturist. In the August number, page 346, are some remarks about the Osage Orange so much at variance with my experience here, in Northern Illinois, lat. 42° 20' north, that I deem it important to notice it.

This great western prairie country, from here to the Rocky Mountains, has not one-fourth timber enough on it to fence it; and it is a matter of vast importance for people to know that there is a plant thoroughly tested that will make a good and cheap hedge.

You say, "This plant" (the Osage Orange,) "has some very good qualities for the purpose," (of a hedge) " but it requires great attention - more it has often been found than the generality of busy farmers can afford to give it; if neglected, it runs wild, loses its lower branches, which at the best must be interlaced after the first cuttings, or they will admit the smaller animals. Another disadvantage is that it is a greedy feeder, extends its roots far and wide, and exhausts the crop of its proper food to some distance in the field. * * * Our own opinion is, that in a vast portion of cases the Osage Orange, without great attention, will prove a disappointment".

You want the Horticulturist to do as much good and as little harm as possible, and so do I. A good hedge plant well and generally used, would be worth millions to this vast prairie country, but it is worth nothing until it is used, and it will require a long time to bring even the best plant into general use; therefore, those who have the public ear should be'careful how they throw obstructions in the way of so important a subject. Had an unknown writer made the discouraging remarks about the Osage that you have, I should not have thought it of much consequence, but "One blast upon your bugle horn Was worth five hundred men".

Now, I desire to express my opinion of the plant in this prairie country as far as I have seen it, 300 miles south of Wisconsin, a few miles north of its south line and almost to and across the Mississippi, and I would say of this Osage Orange plant as God said of everything that he had made; and if it is not the plant made for the hedge plant of all this country, I do not know what the plant is. I have made diligent search for the past 8 years for the best hedge plant, have traveled all over the northern states to find it, and I have found nothing that bears any comparison to the Osage Orange. I have seen the famous hedges in New Haven, Springfield, around Boston, &., made of different kinds of thorn, privet, buckthorn, etc., and almost all were protected by a good fence, and many had a fence both sides to protect them, and I have never seen 100 rods of good hedge fence, except the orange, only around Gardens, and built at great expense; but I have seen many hundred rods of good Osage Orange hedge. I will proceed to contrast my views of the plant with yours. You say "but it requires great attention," etc. I planted two miles last year, and hare planted eight miles this year; after my ground was prepared, my men set 40 rods a day.

I go four or five times over it in the summer with the cultivator, and three or four times with a hoe, enough to keep the weeds down all the time, and after the first year I cut it twice with a scythe; and it takes four or five yean to make a fence, costing one days' work for forty rods in planting, as much for cultivating and hoeing as it would cost to hoe a row of corn, and no more; say a half day for cutting and hoeing forty rods yearly, which for five years would be two and a half days, making in all three and a half days for forty rods, at $1 a day would be $3 50. The cost of preparing good dry ground, and the cost of the plants for forty rods would not ex-ceed $4 50, or 20 cents a rod. There is a company here who set out thousands of rods of Osage hedge yearly; they charge 60 cents a rod, but get but little pay down, they guarantee a good fence, and wait for most of the pay till the fence is perfected. It is true that the ground should be well prepared, and all the work well done and in season to make a good hedge row; so it must to make a good row of corn, and there is no more difficulty, and but little more labor, in cultivating the Osage row than the corn row.

I agree with you that it is a greedy feeder, but with us it doe* not "extend its roots far and wide and exaust the crop," etc.; but on the contrary, the roots run right down, growing to twice the sue of the stock, and drawing its support from deep down in the earth, and you cannot strike the roots with the plough, and I never saw a sucker grow from it; and further, the lower branches do not want interlacing as you say.

Day before yesterday I was on the grounds of my neighbour Capt. James Moore, who is an intelligent horticulturist, and has sixty rods of Osage Orange hedge that he planted five years ago. I do not believe that any animal larger than a rat, or smaller than a Camelopard, can get through or oyer it; the lower branches are so throughly interlaced, clear down to the ground, that you cannot see through it, and I think a snake would be badly scratched before he could get through it. I asked Capt. Moore if he considered it any advantage to interlace the lower branches; he said, "no, that won't do, I interlaced some of mine and found they chafed each other: so I took a bush scythe and cut them all out, and now you see nature has done the work much more perfectly than I could. Well; we walked along the border of his fence thirty rods. First we came to some Isabella grapes the row running down clear into the hedge, the Osage Orange limbs brushing the grape, as the wind moved them about; (we had just read your article,) but we could not see but the grapes were as thrifty, bore as well, and every way as good, as further from the hedge, except not quite as forward: next came strawberries, then sweet potatoes, then nursery trees, all growing clear down to the hedge thriftily, none of them retarded in growth, more than any other green shrub would have done by its shade.

The Osage Orange is much more extensively cultivated in this than any other state. The great scarcity of timber calls for hedges, and the plant was thoroughly tested many years ago by Prof. J. B. Turner, of Jacksonville, Ill.; and after testing it himself, he wrote about it, talked about it, raised the plants extensively, and spread them all over the state, with thorough instructions for their cultivation; so that we are, or ought to be, well posted in the best manner of raising the Osage Orange hedge. But still there are thousands of men amongst us who are so much afraid of being humbuged, that an article like yours would prevent them from setting the plants, though they could see a perfect hedge by going a few miles.

[Our correspondent is enthusiastic, but omites to observe that in our article on the Osage Orange we said, "probably our western friends can give a different account,' and here it is; the ploughing up the roots every year, one part of the attention required, has prevented one of the objections to this plant, which otherwise does extend itself injuriously to the adjoining land in this vicinity. - Ed].