best? 3. Will the hardy catalpa do, if so what distance apart?

ANSWER.--1. Barb-wire has not been introduced and used long enough for
trees set for the purpose of posts to grow to a sufficient size. But in
many cases aged Osage orange hedges, which have been suffered to grow
up, have been thinned out so as to leave a tree every ten, twelve, or
fifteen feet, and on these barbed-wires have been strung and made a
fence, which so far has proved satisfactory. The same success was
obtained where fruit and shade trees standing in a line have had
barbed-wire attached to them. But the precaution must be taken to nail a
strip--a common fence picket will answer--to the tree and then the
barb-wire to that. If this is not done, and the wire is fastened by a
staple to the tree, the wood soon overgrows, cracks and increases the
strain on the wire, damages the tree and spoils the fence. 2. Almost any
fast growing tree will do, but hard wood varieties are preferable. 3.
The hardy catalpa may do, but for low land we would just as soon have
the common willow. Eight feet apart is a good distance. The wires may be
fastened to these when they have acquired a diameter of four or five
inches, and later every other post may be removed. For high and dry land
in your latitude one Osage orange is worth a half-dozen catalpas,
because it is just as easily grown--and when grown it furnishes the
strongest and most lasting timber known. We may add here, that where a
fence is wanted across sloughs, or through permanently wet or moist
land, posts large enough for barbed-wire may be grown in a couple of
years or so--this by cutting stakes six or seven feet long and from
three to five inches in diameter from the common willow, and setting
them in March. The stakes require attention the first summer, in case of
dry weather or drouth, but nothing more than that the moist earth shall
be pressed up against them to prevent the young roots from drying out.

M. D. VINCENT, SPRINGFIELD, MO.--1. Can you tell me how badly oranges
were frosted during the late cold spell in Florida? 2. Is there a record
of colder weather at Charleston, S. C., Savannah, Ga., if so when was
it?

ANSWER.--1. It is hard getting at the facts. One report is that neither
oranges nor the trees were injured at Palatka, fifty miles south of
Jacksonville, while another just as credible says the fruit was badly
frozen on the trees as far south as Enterprise, 100 miles south of
Jacksonville. Th