12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



matters that minister to higher wants of our Natures than m'^vely 

 feeding tlie body. Now if so many of these fences are not kept 

 for their utility we want next to inquire — Are they objects of 

 beauty ? Take our fences as you see them as you ride along — the 

 Virginia fence, the stump fence, the log fence, the pitch-pole 

 fence and the post and rail fence — are they such objects of beauty 

 and taste that we need be at this heavy expenditure to maintain 

 such ornaments on the farm ? I must confess that I am so defi- 

 cient in taste in this respect, that, though little accustomed to see 

 fields extending to the road, I love to view a cultivated field with- 

 out these classic fences with their accompaniment of brambles. 



The neighbors about the college farm are beginning to dispense 

 with their useless fences. We find no difiiculty with our neighbor 

 on the south. I don't know that he has trespassed on us. I 

 think we can mow about straight. I see no disadvantage thus 

 far. The only objection likely to be brought up is this : " We 

 want our fields fenced because we want the fall feed." It seems 

 to me this is one of the great advantages in not having fields 

 fenced — because you can't feed in the fall. It is not only our 

 immediate neighbors that are doing away with these fences, but 

 I find every season as I pass over our roads in every direction, 

 that the farmers are removing their fences from the road-side, and 

 boundary fences where fields come together. We have not yet 

 experienced the inconveniences that are iirged as reasons against 

 the doing away with this expenditure, and I am thoroughly con- 

 vinced that the pasture fences and the fences about the buildings 

 are all the fences needed on a farm. 



Mr. Joseph R. Farrixgton of Orono. I wish to criticise one 

 or two statements made in the papers. Mr. Gilbert says in lus 

 opening paper that the old fences are allowed by the farmers to 

 remain solely through want of taste and want of ability to see 

 that the beauty of the landscape is marred by them. President 

 Allen has just said that we have removed our useless fences at 

 the College farm. I wanted to throw in a word there and say — 

 abandoned. We have abandoned our useless fences, but the v7ork 

 of removal is not the work of a day or a month or a year. We 

 have some of these rumbling, tumbling stone walls, not laid up 

 of such stone as might be moved with a small team, but such as 

 the lumberman farmer who occupied land before us hauled with 

 bis six or eight yoke of seven foot cattle. We have them there, 

 abandoned but not removed, a disfigurement on the farm, but we 



