10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Admitting: that the legitimate use of a fence is to confine our 

 farm stock and prevent our farm crops from injury, we will give a 

 few more statistics. The whole number of neat stock kept on 

 farms in the State — reducing the number of sheep to their equiva- 

 lent in cattle — is 500,000. To pasture these requires 1,500,000 

 acres of pasture lands, and to fence this it will take 7,800,000 rods 

 of fence. Add to this the amount for lanes and farm-yard, eighty 

 rods per farm, ntaking 4,800,000 additional. These amounts 

 make thirty per cent, of the fence we now have. We will add to 

 this ten per cent, more for gardens and orchards and other neces- 

 sary fences, which makes the whole amount 16,795,200 rods. 

 Thus we find we have our pastures and lanes and farm-yards, our 

 gardens and orchards fenced, and we still find we are supporting 

 more than twenty-five million rods offence beside, some of which 

 may be desirable ; but it is a growing opinion among a large class 

 of the intelligent farmers of this and other States that the sup- 

 porting of this large surplus of fence costs more than the benefits 

 to be derived will warrant. 



DiSCU.SSION OF THE AbOVE SuBJECT. 



Mr Wasson. I will simply occupy a moment, hoping that I 

 may be able to open the door of discussion a little wider, and that 

 as usual there will be plenty of volunteers. One of the great 

 difficulties that meets the farmer of Maine is the cost of produc- 

 tion. To make myself understood : If I am a grower of hay as a 

 main crop, and hay is worth $12 per ton in the market, and it costs 

 me $12.50 to grow a ton of hay, I shall not as a matter of econ- 

 omy groiv hay for a long time, and so of any other crop. I 

 believe that this question of cost is the great one which presents 

 itself to-day to the farmers of Maine, and I believe that the reason 

 why the West presents greater attractions to the working men 

 than the East, is because the cost of production is less in propor- 

 tion to the market value. I believe that Maine an}' time fiince 

 1870, can show a greater jield of wheat per acre than any of the 

 wheat-growing States. Yet the farmers think it won't pay to 

 grow wheat in Maine. Why not, when wheat is worth three or 

 four times as much as it is in the West? Because it costs $1.55 

 to produce the wheat which sells for $1.50. I put these down not 

 as accurate statements, but to illustrate my position. I say then 

 that so far as there is a want of success iu farming in Maine, it 



