Old Homesteads and Osage Trees in Virginia

[ahawi stick]

  Over the past fifteen or so years I have cut several osage trees in south central Virginia. Without exception everyone has been near an old homeplace or cemetery . Two of the locations the trees were planted adjacent to graves. A couple locations date back to the 1700s . Was wandering if anyone knows the significance or connection with osage trees and early American homesteads in Virginia.

[osage outlaw]

I don't know about around a cemetary, but all of our property lines around here are osage rows.   

[Postman]

I've read that they were planted extensively as "living fences" until the guy that invented barbed wire came along. They can be spread easily, and do not necessarily have to be planted - cows, squirrels, ect. will eat and distribute the seeds.
 I don't think as far back as 1700, though.  Any old farmland areas that have not been developed will have them. Here in Shenandoah county, they are very common, many still in long, kinda straight rows showing old property or field divisions. They plowed HUNDREDS out between the lanes on Rt 81 by Strasburg last year