444 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A LITTLE SARCASM NOW AND THEN IS RELISHED BY THE 



MILDEST MEN. 



You ask for a score of reasons in favor of the fence. I will trou- 

 ble you with a less number. 



1st. Householders are generally rich, and in order to stimulate 

 trade and labor they should be required to spend some of their surplus 

 cash in putting up fences around their grounds. 



2d. If properly made and kept in repair, fences can be depended 

 on to keep trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables from straying into the 

 road, and thus obstructing travel and possibly injuring animals that 

 have a right to the public highway. 



3d. They add so much to the beauty of the landscape and to the 

 attraction of any particular neighborhood, especially when out of re- 

 pair. 



4th. Fencing material is so abundant in this country. There 

 might be difficulty in getting rid of it if some was not used for road 

 fences. This will apply in an especial degree to the prairie country of 

 the west. 



5th. This being a new country and the soil wonderfully produc- 

 tive, it don't take much work to raise enough to live on, and if house- 

 holders were relieved of the necessity of making fences, time would 

 hang heavily on their hands, and perhaps some of them would get into 

 mischief and thus into prison. You see, when a man is fencing, he is 

 not stealing his neighbor's chickens. 



6th. Some people want to keep cattle and horses, and if the far- 

 mer don't fence in his growing grain, these cattle and horses could go 

 off the grass into the growing crops, and it is sometimes dangerous, 

 owing to a tendency of such grain- stuff to produce colic or other dis- 

 orders in the innocent animals. This must be prevented, and who has 

 so good a right to fence as the man who will persist in trying to raise 

 such dangerous stuff as wheat or corn? 



7th. Sometimes in a long wet spell the farmer's plowed fields 

 get very muddy, and if they are not properly fenced, travelers' horses 

 might get out of the road and into the field and thus get mired, and 

 thus travel would be greatly impeded. This is not likely to occur if 

 the roads are properly fenced. 



8th. Drovers sometimes wish to drive animals across the country 

 from one point to another, and this is easily done if the roads are pro- 

 perly fenced, but if not, it is very difficult. Sometimes the drover is 

 greatly annoyed by the careless farmers leaving a gate open, or leaving 



