28 



showing an annual expenditure on a farm thus fenced of $43.20 for permanent mainten- 

 ance, greater than on the fences first described. 



6th, — The estimate, therefore, in the second paragraph of the previous report of two 

 dollars per acre per annum seems a moderate one, and your Committee are of the opinion 

 that if farmers were not compelled to fence against their neighbour's cattle, they would 

 protect their crops and their own cattle by live fences of trees forming wind breaks ; by 

 the use of hurdles, and otherwise, (which would add much to the general beauty of the 

 country and thereby greatly enhance the value of the land) at less than one quarter of 

 the yearly expenditure above shown, or — in other words— that the farmer of every 100 

 acres of land in Ontario could realize a clear yearly profit, over and above what he is now 

 doing (if every owner of stock were compelled by law to keep them enclosed), of $150.00. 



7th, — That the foregoing figures showing the unnecessary but compulsory annual 

 expenditure of $1.50 per acre for all cultivated land, by the unwise laws at pres- 

 ent in force in this Province, have been carefully prepared, and therefore, by applying- 

 them to communities of farms, we find that the annual loss from this cause to the large 

 Township of London in the County of Middlesex, — having a cultivated area of nearly 

 70,000 acres — is over $100,000. The Township of Mariposa, in the County of Victoria, 

 having cleared land to the extent of nearly 48,000 acres, looses $72,000 annually. The 

 Model Farm at Guelph losses by the same means annually about $800. These figures 

 when applied to the whole Province assumes gigantic proportions, for we find from oflBcial 

 reports that there are at the present time between eleven and twelve millions of acres 

 under actual cultivation. The total loss, therefore to the farmers of Ontario must be 

 upwards of $16,000,000 per annum. 



Thos. Beall, Chairman. 



P. E. BUCKE, 



Thos. Halliday Watt. 



Col. McGill. — I understood you to say that the old snake fence lasted ten years. 

 I used to be a practical fence maker. I was brought up in the woods. I came into 

 Canada in 1820, and settled in the Township of Pickering when it was almost in a virgin 

 state, and I know a little about making fences. I have been married now 47 years, and 

 I built a fence some time before I was married, and it has never been made over from 

 that day to the present. It keeps all the cattle in. 



Mr. Bucke. — What wood is it made of % 



Col. McGill. — It is made of pine and cedar. 



Mr. Bucke. — Is it staked and ridered? 



Col. McGill. — It was staked and ridered at first; but the stakes have been down, 

 these last fifteen years. It has never been repaired ; it has never broken down to the bottom, 

 rail, and there is a northwest wind with a sweep of four miles that rakes it. There is a 

 good deal of fault found with the timber, whereas it is the men who use that timber and 

 put it up who are to blame. If the rails for a rail fence are cut at the proper time of 

 year, and properly split and put up, the fence will last twice as long as if they are not. A 

 worm rail fence costs more in its first construction than the fence of which Mr. Beall was 

 speaking. There is a large proportion of that fence being built in the Township of East 

 Whitby that will not last half as long as a worm fence. It does not occupy as much 

 ground ; but there are six feet of ground even at a straight fence that is not ploughable, 

 because you have to keep far enough away from your wires for the end of your whipple- 

 trees. There is a little more than that in a worm fence ; but you can get right up to a 

 worm fence. Six hundred and fifty twelve-foot rails will make a worm fence forty rods 

 long and four feet high if the rails are what they ought to be ; and a rail fence put up in 

 that way will last as long as two straight fences, because the posts of the straight fence 

 will decay in one half the time between wind and water. The first fence spoken of is not 

 as good a fence. It is not as durable a fence, from actual experience, as to take two posts 

 and set them in and put rails between them. The tenon is only two inches that goes 

 into each post — though sometimes about four, when you happen to have an extra sized post. 



