242 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fulness of wood fences and "the necessit}- of some other material 

 than wood and more universally available than stone." 



In the first quarter of this century- numerous efforts and large 

 expenditures were made for the universal adoption of the hedge in 

 American fencing. It was abuudantl}' and widely tried and most 

 emphatically failed. It was probably less largely pressed for con- 

 sideration in Maine, for the hedge of whatever variet}' is a crop in 

 whose perfection climate is to be considered. But it has been a 

 success in no section of the country'. Both in the United States and 

 England the overgrown hedge has become a pest of the soil. Where 

 scanty and ii'regular in growth it is worthless. But the fences of 

 wood and stone had other evils that have long been complained of, 

 and these aside from the question of cost already before referred to. 

 Savs Secretary Flint, in the Report of the Massachusetts State 

 Board of Agriculture for 1861 : 



"A very large item in the waste by old-fashioned fence construction is the land 

 occupied by the fence, and worthless because uncultuced on each side. # * » 

 Four feet is a moderata estimate for the land thus rendered worse than useless. This 

 would leave under and on both sides of the fence enclosing ten acres one and one-fourth 

 acres, or for the twenty-three million rods of fencing in Massachusetts, thirty-one 

 thousand, two hundred and fifty acres unoccupied, untillcd, a refuge for every kind 

 of vermin that walks, flies or crawls." 



Says the Annual Register of Rural Affairs : 



"The entire loss to the ten million acres of arable land in the State of New York 

 from the zigzag form of fences cannot be less tban three hundred thousand acres of 

 arable land, equal to three thousand good farms." 



The same testimony comes from all sections and has been coming 

 for a generation past. Nevertheless, fencing has held its place, 

 and to-day we have in the United States six millions of miles of 

 fencing that cost in original outla}' something over two billions of 

 dollars. Why do we fence ? It is a case where custom sustains 

 legal enactment. And the legal enactment is not evervwhere hoarv 

 and mossgrowu. If you turn to the most recent enactments of new 

 States and Territories 30U will find strict fence laws among the first 

 to be enacted among the statutes. (See Statutes of Nebraska, 

 Colorado, California, Oregon, &c.) 



It may be declared with safety that the perfect fence is either 

 prescribed in all the States in specific terms, or it is made the 

 farmer's interest to build one, and more universally the well fenced 

 farm is the first item descriptive of the well kept farm, and there is 

 no surer token of the sluggard agriculturist than dilapidated fences. 

 That is farm rule reaffirmed by farmers. 



