FAEMEKS' INSTITUTES. 251 



annual fence tax upon ,all the cultivated lands of the State is 11.77 per acre, 

 while all the State, county, and local taxes of the rural portion of the State are 

 only about $.35 per acre. There are 32,000 miles of roadside fences in the 

 State, the estimated cost of which is $10,240,000, and the annnal cost of repairs 

 and interest $1,024,000. In Washtenaw county, according to the State census 

 of 1874, there are 269,715 acres of improved land, the cost of fencing which is 

 estimated at $2,157,720. To fence a township costs $216,000; and if estimated 

 upon this basis, which is supposing all the lands of the town under cultivation, 

 the cost of the fences of the county would aggregate the enormous sum of 

 $4,320,000. Is .this vast expenditure necessary? Just look at the figures, reach- 

 ing even into the billions. Will farmers enquire whether nine-tenths of it could 

 not be dispensed with most advantageously, doing without many otiier items of 

 cost which are incidental to the present system? W^e blow loud and lustily our 

 trumpets about the financial benefits of cooperative societies and a trans-conti- 

 nental cooperative bugbear, which in our vainglory we anticipate will revolu- 

 tionize the laws of trade and place the coffers of the world at our dis])osal. To 

 be sure we have cause to feel solicitous about the practical economy of our business 

 as now conducted. We realize tiuit our exj^enses are burdensome, our returns 

 deficient, our profits dribbling away from some cause we do not seem to under- 

 stand, simply because we dwell too self-complacent with our own management. 

 We say the fault is not at our own doors ; tliere is nothing that we need to reor- 

 ganize and improve in the usual manner of conducting our own affairs; the 

 danger ajiprehended must result from the antagonistic interests of other occu- 

 pations. But how is it ; have we reached the highest stage of perfection in our 

 work? I think you will all bear me out in saying tliat much yet remains to be 

 done. Two of the greatest hindrances to profitable husbandry are an insufferable 

 fence tax and superficial culture. Our fence system has been gradually engrafted 

 upon us by accidental circumstances growing out of the necessity of early set- 

 tlers who fenced around the first cleared field and let the stock run in the woods. 

 Laws made at first to protect such settlers liave been continued, and men edu- 

 cated to bear the heavy burden they entailed until they appear to love the law, 

 or rather custom that forces them to pay such a penalty. The universal cus- 

 tom, and not the law, — for really there is no such statute, — has led men to 

 believe that every owner of land is obliged to fence all tlie world out; and that 

 it is not trespass to enter upon any unenclosed lot and despoil it of half its value. 

 Were it not fer this unjustifiable custom, a poor man might go out upon the 

 western prairies, and without a dolhir of capital take up public land, hire the 

 culture performed, the expense to be defrayed by the crop or his own labor, and 

 in a few years become the owner of a good farm. But he is denied this enviable 

 position Ijecause custom compels him to first fence his fields and plant tliem 

 afterward-s. Statute laws do not require land owners to fence highways. It is 

 the law of custom, — a custom that has been so long in use that most people 

 suppose it to be a law. The whole system is founded upon error. The law, of 

 course, will protect property. It never takes it from one owner to give it to 

 anotiier, as if it should authorize the pasturing of one man's cattle upon anoth- 

 er's land. The owner of land along a highway owns all but the right of the 

 public to use it as a thoroughfare. JSTo law can constitutionally give any other 

 man the right to mow or pasture the grass in a liighway, nor compel the owner 

 to fence out the cattle of others. It is not law by the enactments of any Legis- 

 lature, and it has been frequently decided by courts in different states that the 

 owner of land can recover damages for trespass, fence or no fence. Says a noted 



