Are Hedge Apples good for anything?

[wornoutboots]

Out on my morning hike and noticed the Hedge Apples are dropping fast and plenty here in the Bluegrass state.
Are they good for anything??
My Beautiful Mother, used to put them in our basement to ward off spiders.
Anyone else use them for anything??

[No Match]

Out on my morning hike and noticed the Hedge Apples are dropping fast and plenty here in the Bluegrass state.
Are they good for anything??
My Beautiful Mother, used to put them in our basement to ward off spiders.
Anyone else use them for anything??

Several older folks, much older asked me to gather them some over the years. They would cut them in half throwing under their houses and sheds. Termites and a whole host of other insects will avoid them when looking over places to winter the larvae. I once was told that the white milky liquid was actually used for some of the first pesticides.

[Hikes in Rain]

They were fun to throw at each other, when I was a kid. Less fun to get hit with one. Another name for it is Osage Orange, and the wood is one of the top three best woods to make a bow, assuming you can find a straight piece with no knots.

[zelph]

and the wood is one of the top three best woods to make a bow, assuming you can find a straight piece with no knots.

Slightly curved is better.

Enough squished fruit placed strategically inside of a shelter might detter mice

[Mike Goodman]

Play baseball with them. Batting practice, that is.
Actually, "splatter the pitcher" is more the goal.

[Hikes in Rain]

Slightly curved is better.

Enough squished fruit placed strategically inside of a shelter might detter mice

Curved does help. The ones I had access to were planted way back during the Dust Bowl year, and woven together to form tall hedges, to help break up the wind and keep soil in place. They were old messes when I got there! Grain twisted up like a rope, broken branches that sort of healed back together. Every farm had at least one, and the hedges often went from one farm to another. With all those trees, I never found a piece I could use! That was back in the mid to late '60's, back in central Illinois. All those trees are gone now. Small farms taken over by agriculture, and melded into fields as far as the eye can see.

[Night Train]

Wagon wheels, boats, woodwind instruments and water fowl calls.

[Mother Natures Son]

I remember a small comany in NY state mixing them with other Apples and making Hard Cider. Just a idea for you.

[wornoutboots]

https://lancaster.unl.edu/osage-orange-tree

[wornoutboots]

Apparently some people who lived 10,000 years ago have told other about what they were for....

"Long ago - 10,000 to 13,000 years - woolly mammoths (shoulder height 8.5 to 11 feet tall), ground-sloths (about 10 feet tall standing on their hind feet) and other extinct mega-sized mammals ate Osage-orange leaves, twigs, branches and fruits"

[zelph]

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[COLOR=var(--color_text)]Making the Osage Bow is a fun task, and please read all you can before you begin. I have made my video to help all newcomers learn how it is done, and we filmed for 50 hours, and then it was edited to 1.75 hours to fit the DVDs. A good book is Bows and Arrows by James Duff, and this book will give you tremendous information about Osage Bow making by a man who may have made more Osage Bows than anyone in modern times.[/COLOR]




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]I really cannot tell you enough how important it is to read all you can. I wore out a few books as I started making Bows, and I broke a lot of Bows also, but there was no one to teach me, so I had to learn on my own.[/COLOR]




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]Please be ready to build your Bow before you purchase a Stave from anyone, as you will probably ruin your first Osage Stave if you have neglected your homework. I receive many calls each week, and my answer is always the same as mentioned, but as the saying goes, "I can lead you to water but cannot make you drink." Call me any time before you buy that Stave or make that first Bow. Selling something is not as important as getting you off to a good start. Thank you, James Easter.[/COLOR]


























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[COLOR=var(--color_text)]From several points of view, the Osage Orange is a tree of extraordinary interest. The historian will tell you that long before the settlement of America by the whites, the Indians used the wood for warclubs and bows—a custom that gave rise to one of its common names: "Bow Wood." Its other common name is due to the fact that it was introduced into cultivation among the earliest settlers in St. Louis by specimens procured from the Osage Indians. Also, during the development of the great prairie region beyond the Mississippi, the species served an important purpose as a hedge plant, thousands of farmers utilizing it for fencing their fields. The new growth hedge was interwoven to make a tight fence.




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]The introduction of barbed wire greatly reduced the importance of these hedge fences. These remaining Hedge Rows now are an excellent source for Hedge Posts.[/COLOR]




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]Osage Orange is of interest from root to fruit. The bark of the roots is of a bright orange color and furnishes a yellow dye; the ridged and scaly bark of the trunk furnishes tannin for making leather; the branches have attractive leaves with thorns at their bases; the pollen-bearing and seed-bearing flowers are borne upon separate trees. [/COLOR]




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]These round heads mature into one of the strangest fruits known to science: the so-called "Hedgeapple" is a greenish compound fruit made up of a large number of seed-bearing fruits grown together on their edges.[/COLOR]




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]The Osage Orange can be propagated very easily and makes good hedges and also a bushy tree that, when loaded with fruit, attracts much attention. The wood is also relatively immune from insect and fungus attacks.[/COLOR]




[COLOR=var(--color_text)]The Osage Orange has been recorded to heights of over 60 feet and trunk diameters of 4 to 7 feet. Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are its sites of original growth.[/COLOR]











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