352 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



agricultural writer, "We can conceive but one greater nuisance in a neighbor- 

 hood than a hog that is always on the watch for an open gate or hole Avhere he 

 can thrust in his nose and root away into mischief, and that one greater nui- 

 sance is its owner. An owner who educates his animals to steal ought to be 

 held responsible as a thief, and the animals got rid of. Domestic animals 

 should be made more domestic. It is tiie best way to save expense in fencing. 

 In no other country is the fence tax so onerous as this. Throughout France 

 there are very few fences. In Belgium fewer, and in Lombardy and northern 

 Italy they are scarcely known. We are beginning to realize in some sense the 

 heavy penalty attaching to numerous fences, as examples will testify. In south- 

 ern Illinois farmers are doing away with them ; and some of our own towns, as 

 Battle Creek, are abandoning them to their benefited appearance. 



These examples seem to testify that fences are not an absolute necessity. I 

 clip a few well-timed sentences from the remarks of an agricultural writer in 

 California upon fencing: "The trespass law, better known as the 'no fence 

 law,' has on the Avhole worked well. The principle is right, and its application 

 cannot be wrong in any part, except to be made more effective, and its applica- 

 tion more general." Where agriculture has been carried to a high state of per- 

 fection very few fences are seen, A few monuments are set up to define boun- 

 daries, but there are no division fences and no waste land on that account. It 

 is clean land and clean farming. The time will c me when tlie best farmers 

 in California will have few division fences. Movable ones will be adopted where 

 temporary divisions of the field may be necessary. But I presume the question 

 arises in your mind, how can I dispense with fences? I recognize their im- 

 mense cost, but how am I to pasture my stock wnthout enclosures? I reply, adopt 

 the soiling system, which will avoid interior fences, saving kind as well as fence ;. 

 saving manure as well as time in always having working animals and cows at 

 hand. It makes animals more docile, benefiting the morals of farmers' boys, 

 which arc apt to partake of the character of the animcT/ls ; and wild animals^ 

 make wild men, and trespassing animals make bad neighbors and breed mischief.. 

 Order and gentleness among animals and men grow out of this greater domes- 

 tication under the soiling system. There are nine leading and distinct advan- 

 tages in favor of soiling enumerated by writers upon the subject, to-w^it : saving 

 land ; saving fencing ; saving food ; keeping stock in greater comfort, good 

 health, and better general condition ; producing more milk ; saving the manure 

 by which greater cultivated crops are produced; the animals are more docile' 

 and easier disciplined ; they commit no trespass, as animals at large frequently 

 do, and the business of tlie farm can be conducted in greater order and comfort, 

 and altogether more economically. Are not these advantages- plain, desirable, 

 and sufficiently important to convince anyone of the benefits of this system. It 

 is not necessary that a man should carry on the business of a dairy, or possess- 

 for any purpose a large stock of cattle and horses, in order that the practice of 

 the soiling system should be rendered profitable, for it is not the number of 

 animals to be cared for, but the evils avoided and the good received that con- 

 stitute the work of the system. The waste of land by feu-cing is enough of itself 

 to condemn the practice if there were no other expense. AVhat it costs and what 

 the law is, and not what has been customary in regard to fences, should be mat- 

 ters of constant thought and frequent discussion in all. farmers' club meetings. 

 In farming, as in other kinds of business, we are laboring for the profits, and if 

 that be the case, we must not allow ourselves to pursue a course which endan- 

 gers our advancement, and go on simply from force of habit. Let us in. the pur- 



