FENCING. 43 



It is often urged that the fencing of a particular 

 boundary line may be of more advantage to one farm 

 than another : it often is so, but any hardship on this 

 score could be met by the un\Yilling party having the 

 right to call in arbitrators to decide on the relative 

 portions of expense each farm should bear. 



Another suggestion which has been made, is that the 

 unwilling man should not be called upon for his half 

 the expense unless he used the fence as part of an 

 enclosure, or made some other fence abutting on to it. 

 It would have been wise if this scheme had been ac^ 

 cepted, as then the most sensitive could not have feared 

 that there would be any oppression towards the poorer 

 or unwilling man. As it is, whole tracts of country lie 

 unfenced and producing little or nothing towards the 

 general wealth of the country, which would otherwise 

 have been fenced and have become highly productive. 



It is found in practice that neighbours seldom 

 agree as to erecting a mutual boundary fence ; in con- 

 sequence the fencing man is driven to fence a few 

 yards inside his boundary, with the object of compelling 

 his neighbour to share the expense before he can make 

 use of the fence. This, if it contmues, will, in the 

 course of time, bring endless disputes as to where the 

 boundaries of the farms are. 



Where the cost of the fence is to be mutually 



