They were planted here a lot just to slow wind erosion. A lot are being tore out now to gain a little bit of farm ground

Not sure I've ever seen it done, but wonder if you wanted to use them for fence posts if you planted them close spaced in grove........only way to get light is to grow straight up. I know of a few old growth fence rows that have clear straight trunks........could probably get 10 foot logs in 1 to 2 foot diameter range. You can mill and work that OK when green, but once it dries out, not sure how you would deal with it.

Osage is THE premium North American wood for bows. It was traded all over the continent. Nowadays, a good, clean stave will run north of $200, split, debarked, sapwood removed and dried.

Used to be all over in southern NJ. Farm equipment got bigger and most of the hedgerows between fields were cut down. I know of three locations with a few trees in each in the whole county.

You can also stick cuttings in the dirt or pots and most will take root and sprout. Many Osage Orange fence rows started out as fence posts that rooted.

One decent sized hedge apple will probably have 50-100 seeds in my experience. I just placed about a dozen fruits in a 5 gallon pail and left it outside for the winter to let them cold stratify and rot down some.
Around April, I just filled the bucket with water and smashed everything into a pulp and then drained that through a sieve. Then I rewashed all the separated seeds and put them in a single layer on paper towel in front of a fan for a whole day.
After that, plant like any other seed. Germination rates were over 90% for me using this method.

Sure make great duck calls, in the hands of master call makers( and World Champion callers)

Don't think I ever heard of anyone planting the things on purpose

deer browse our osage orange pretty hard. Many of the mature trees have no leaves from 5' down. When i cut one down and it resprouts from the stump, they keep the resprouting well trimmed.

Ive cut and planted a lot of hedge posts myself and know a lot of guys who have built fence for a living and have never seen or even heard such a thing.

mr steinmeyer has a hedge handled fleshing knife waiting on me at the KS convention. excited to see it