New Cash Crop

[slick4591]

We mostly call them horse apples.

Johnson is paying $180 a ton for the hedge balls.

 

[Bigfoot]

I've got one lonesome Osage orange on my place. I've always wanted to rob a limb, and try to make a bow.

Side note:
Although useless, and unedible, I have one old doe that really likes them. Keep expecting to find her choked to death under the tree.

 

[dun]

They actually do work for spiders

 

[slick4591]

Years ago when I lived in a mobile home I would cut them in half and throw them under it. Don't remember having any serious insect problems.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I accidentally pushed one over when I was clearing brush. Didn't even know it was in the pile until I saw the bright wood. I've felt bad about it for years.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I've got one lonesome Osage orange on my place. I've always wanted to rob a limb, and try to make a bow.

Side note:
Although useless, and unedible, I have one old doe that really likes them. Keep expecting to find her choked to death under the tree.

They make great bows you better buy a copy of the Bowyers Bible to keep your sanity and blood pressure down figure about 40 hours in one.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/761952?wmlsp ... 3=&veh=sem

 

[D2Cat]

A man told me when they needed fence, they would gather hedge balls from where ever they could find them. Soak them in a barrel until they turned to mush. Plow a furrow where they wanted the fence. Then dump the mush in the ditch. Soon they had a thicket nothing could get through.

Three pieces about 8" in dia. and 22" long will heat my house all night, even in this weather.

 

[CaddoFarms]

Up in MO we called them osage orange. Since coming down to TX I've learned they call it Bodarc I believe. And from what I understand they make long lasting fence posts correct?

 

[dun]

Up in MO we called them osage orange. Since coming down to TX I've learned they call it Bodarc I believe. And from what I understand they make long lasting fence posts correct?

I had always heard how good of posts they made. Had a friend of mine haul me a load from Illinois. There's must be different than everyone elses. It's hard as a wood peckers lips but the ants have riddled them something awful

 

[reeler]

I've got one lonesome Osage orange on my place. I've always wanted to rob a limb, and try to make a bow.

Side note:
Although useless, and unedible, I have one old doe that really likes them. Keep expecting to find her choked to death under the tree.

I've had to have the vet out on 2 separate occasions due to calf getting 'choked ' on a hedge ball. It's was a life or death situation both times.They can't eat or drink, then start to bloat. Vet punctures them with this apparatus, & also uses a tube through it's mouth to push hedge ball down.thankfully both calves survived.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Up in MO we called them osage orange. Since coming down to TX I've learned they call it Bodarc I believe. And from what I understand they make long lasting fence posts correct?

It is actually Bois D'arc from the French explorers as with anything else it gets lost in translation and time.
It literally means bow wood in french

 

[slick4591]

Up in MO we called them osage orange. Since coming down to TX I've learned they call it Bodarc I believe. And from what I understand they make long lasting fence posts correct?

It is actually Bois D'arc from the French explorers as with anything else it gets lost in translation and time.
It literally means bow wood in french

Bois D'arc is all I've ever heard the tree called until joining up here. The fruit has always been called a horse apple.

 

[D2Cat]

Up here, there usually in fence rows actually forming the fence, hence called "hedge rows", and the fruit is a hedge apple.

I saw on Ebay a few years ago, someone selling an envelope of "hedge seeds". Had a paragraph telling about all the benefits of them. .25 cent a pack. I wonder how many they sold!