1Q BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



but of course it is cheaper to remove the fences. I wish to give 

 an illustration of what might be done. You know in Germany 

 there were a great many old Lombardy poplars along the high- 

 ways. They shaded the land so as to be injurious, and their roots 

 ran out and injured the fertility of the soil. The Prussian govern- 

 ment issued a mandate that they should be cut down and apple 

 trees planted in their stead, and it was done within two years, 

 and it is found that the revenue from these apple trees paj's the 

 whole co.st of maintaining the highways. 



Mr. L. L. Lucas of St. Albans. The owner of cattle is under 

 obligation to take such care of them that they will not annoy 

 his neighbors, and in order to do so he must have protection of 

 some kind to keep them on his own premises. The question has 

 been discussed whether he will fence them in, or fence them out. 

 Whether we fence them out or not we must fence them in, and if 

 we do both it makes two fences to build and keep in repair. If 

 every one fenced his cattle in there would be no need for any one 

 to fence them out. As to the road fences, for at least four months 

 in the year, in a large part of New England, they are an expen- 

 sive nuisance. The highways through a great many of our towns 

 are blocked up with snow so that it is expensive to clear them 

 out, and many of them are shut up three or four months in the 

 year because there is not sufficient travel on them to pay the 

 expense of breaking them out. We asked in our town a few 

 years ago for a legislative enactment making it imperative on a 

 town to have the fences that could be, taken down before the 

 snow came, and put up again in the spring, at the expense of the 

 district. They said that surveyors had the right to do that now, 

 and so "legislation was inexpedient," 



One argument against leaving down the roadside fences is the 

 inconvenience of driving herds of cattle and of driving cows to 

 pasture over these roads. The herds are driven more generally 

 during the last part of the season than any other time, and then 

 the crops are taken oflf and the bars left down, and it makes more 

 trouble and is more expense to get sheep by the fields than it 

 would be if there was no fence there. There are just gaps enough 

 to make trouble. These fences are a nuisance for the collection 

 of weeds and briers, and are not of any use when you want a 

 fence, for there is not one in fifty of them that will stop cattle if 

 you want them to. Now if we can make a change and get rid of 

 these useless fences, or apologies for fences, and apply the mate- 



