12 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



vast timberless plains has not yet been discovered, except 

 indeed your worthy correspondent, Col. McDonald,^ has 

 furnished you the wherewithal in the "Cherokee rose 

 hedge." 



As an improvement to Mr. Kennicut's post and bar 

 fence, I would recommend setting the fence on a ridge 

 after the plan of Mr. Ellsworth, with a plow having a 

 mould board six or eight feet long. But then this cannot 

 be well done except on old ground. The bank thus made 

 is cheap, and if sowed with grass, will last; and then 

 three bars make a good fence. 



If you had 'capped' your board fence with an upright 

 strip over every post, nailed on with 12d nails, how could 

 the cattle pull off the top bar, or any other one. True it 

 will be better with split posts, and those much larger. The 

 greatest difficulty that I find with fence posts is in con- 

 sequence of the extreme softness of our rich soil that they 

 soon begin to lean towards every day in the week but 

 Sunday. 



In consequence of this disposition of posts to go astray, 

 I tried an experiment two years ago by using small posts, 

 framed with a tenon into a sill about 21/2 or 3 feet long, 

 with braces nailed on each side. These sills lie across the 

 fence, buried partly in the ground, and the fence stands 

 very firm, without 'yawing' one way or the other. I 

 believe where hauling of timber is an object, that this 

 kind of fence will be found cheaper and more durable 

 than setting posts in the ground. The tenons and braces 

 will most likely last as long as common sized posts in the 

 earth. 



^ Colonel Alexander McDonald, of Eufaula, Alabama. Interested 

 in scientific agriculture. Raised diversified crops, but specialized 

 in cotton. Correspondent of the Cultivator, American Agricultur- 

 ist, Prairie Faryner, Nashville Agriculturist, and Southern Culti- 

 vator. For a description of his plantation operations in 1845, see 

 American Agriculturist, 5:22-23 (January, 1846). See also Mc- 

 Donald's letter to editors, Prairie Farmer, 6:12 (January, 1846). 

 McDonald died August 16, 1846. Cultivator, n.s. 3:324 (October, 

 1846), and Prairie Farmer, 6:358 (November, 1846). 



