SECRETARY'S REPORT. 217 



applied to better and more ennobling purposes, had our early system 

 of customs and laws been what they ultimately must be. 



It has been estimated from well considered data, that the labor 

 involved in fencing in some of the States, is greater than that in 

 the erection of all the buildings, including all the cities and towns. 



Having worked as boy and man, in helping clear and fence a farm, 

 till the ao-ofrewate of its fences of wood and stone, extended to six or 

 seven miles, T may be allowed to speak feelingly regarding this 

 incubus on the farmer's prosperity. 



One-half of all farm fences are interior ; and aside from an occa- 

 sional necessity for making a permanent distinction between arable 

 land and a piece that nature designed for a pasture, they are worse 

 than useless. 



Adopt a single principle, that no beast shall be permitted to range 

 on lands adapted to the plow and the scythe, and you are prepared 

 to wipe off from the face of our fair country, much that disfigures 

 it, and abolish, at once and forever, a vast item in your annual tax- 

 ation. 



The most false of anything that assumes the name of ecowowy, is 

 the practice of pasturing mowing-lands. Interior fences, that were 

 erected, and are maintained for the sole purpose of enabling the pro- 

 prietor to pasture his mowing-lands, have cost the farmers of Maine 

 a very large sum. To call in the aid of arithmetic, it will read in 

 this wise : The improved lands in the State may now be set down 

 at two and a half millions of acres, (2,500,000.) Taking the esti- 

 mate by very good authority,* of ten rods of fence, at one dollar per 

 rod, for each acre of improved land, gives us for fences in the State, 

 the sum of twenty-five millions of dollars ($25,000,000.) Half of 

 this sum, $12,500,000, we will set down for interior fences on farms. 

 It may be fair to assume for annual erections, while the present 

 system continues, for changes and repairs, ten per cent of this sum, 

 or one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, ($1,250,000) 

 which the farmers of the State are annually paying as a direct tax 

 on their resources, and on which very few have heretofore had the 

 courage to raise their voices in complaint. Impressed with the 

 truthfulness of such estimates, who can for another year remain 



* Cumberland Co. Agl. Society. Committee on Farms. 



