The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-07-22
Ornamental Hedges,

grounds where hedges and screens may
be employed for separating flower
gardens from vegetables, or where a
handsome green barrier may take the
place of an Unlocking fence. They
may be intended merely as screens, or
they may operate as barriers against in
truders: Evergreen hedges on the
north side of garden afford shelter
from cold northerly winds, and promote
the early growth of vegetables, the
quick ripening of small fruits, and the
early opening of flowers.
Hedges may be deciduous or ever
green. Among the former for orna-
mental effect, are the scarlet Japan
ounce, the privet, the Tartarian honey
suckle, the hawthorn, the buckthorn,
and some of the spireas. The haw-
thorn succeeds best in the more north
ern portions of the country and on
strong soils. Perhaps the best of all
deciduous screens is the purple bar
berry, which is easily raised from seed,
and the plants form dense growth
and good hedge with no cutting back.
Among the evergreens for screens,
are all those which may be reduced to
q dwarf habit and compact growth.
The Siberian arbor vitae is one of the
finest. The American arbor Vita is less
expensive in the cost of the young
plants, but it is not so compact, requires
more cutting back, and has more or less
dull brown color in winter. The
hemlock. if kept cut back, forms one of
che handsomest of all screens, retaining
at all times fine green color, and
forming dense growth. not so hollow
and bare inside as the arbor vitae. The
Norway spruce is the strongest and
most vigorous in growth of all common
evergreens, and if kept within bounds
makes a beautiful screen. But of the
slow-growing evergreen-shrubs the tree
box stands first on the list. When six
feet in height its foliage and appearance
are perfection, but twenty years are re-
quired to reach this size. Like the
barberry among deciduous trees, it
scarcely ever needs any cutting back,
and very little to keep it in proper
form. There are some new dwarf
pines and spruces which would answer
well were they not scarce and high
priced.
Screens which border on the public
road or street, and are intended as
barrier against intruders. should form
a regular line and should be cut quite
low. But for the boundaries of the
grounds in other directions, where trees
and shrubs abound, hedges may grow
more ut random and be less formal, and
the uniformity of a continued line be
broken by scattered paintings against
it.-COu,atru Gentleman.
THE revenue cutter Thomas Corwin,
which has been reported by telegraph
as starting from San Francisco on an
Arctic expedition, goes especially to
rescue the crews of two missing
whalers, the Mount Wollaston and the
Vigilant. She is provided with an iron
ice breaker on her bow, is fully pro-
visioned for a polar winter, and has in
structions to go as far north as posi-
BILE, after rescuing the whalers or as
pertaining their fate. Captain Smith has
a theory about the north pole which
he hopes to substantiate. Il believe"
he says, ''that Wrangers Land extends
clear around to and forms a part of
Greenland, and that when the north
pole is discovered it will be found to
be on the land, firmly planted in the
ground, as it were. To my mind this
has been clearly proven by the set of the
current and the action of the moving
ice.'