8 . BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



II. The Statistics of Fencing. 



By Ira E. Getchell, North Vassalboro'. 



The part assigned me in the discussion of this question is 

 largely statistical, and I have made use of many facts and figures 

 from the last United States Census Report, as being more reliable 

 than perhaps can be obtained from any other source. 



Our State has a total land area of twenty million acres, a little 

 less than one-third of which is devoted to agriculture. In other 

 words, we have six million acres occupied and improved for farm- 

 ing purposes, as distinguished from the wild and timber lands of 

 the State. The same report gives the average size of the farms 

 in the State as ninety-eight acres — the report of 1860 as one hun- 

 dred and three acres. The number of farms that exceed three 

 acres in size is sixty thousand. Taking these figures as a basis 

 from which to make our estimates, we have sixty thousand farms 

 of one hundred acres each, which law and custom require shall 

 be enclosed with a good and substantial fence. To inclose a farm 

 of one hundred acres — dimensions 100 by 160 rods — requires 520 

 rods of fence, one-half of which each proprietor is required to 

 build and maintain. ' This multiplied by 60,000, the number of 

 farms in the State, gives 15,000,000 rods of fence required to 

 build our boundary or line fences. For the partition or internal 

 fences of the farm we have no data upon which to form our esti- 

 mate, excepting observation and the opinions of intelligent farmers 

 with whom we have conversed. They include the enclosures of 

 the flower and vegetable gardens, orchards, farm yards, lane and 

 pasture fences, (excepting such as are enclosed by road or boun- 

 dary fences.) I think it a low estimate to call the internal fences 

 of our farms as equal to one-half the circumference or boundary 

 fences. This divides them into fields of twenty-five acres each, 

 requiring 260 rods of fence per farm and 15,600,000 rods for the 

 State. 



To assist me in my estimate of the road fences of the State, I 

 have taken several agricultural towns, with the roads of which I 

 am familiar, as a basis from which to estimate the whole. My 

 own town, (Winslow) which is nearly the average of the towns of 



