THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 71 



fence is to be made. Now make a fence rule, Fig. 15, which consists 

 FIG 15 ^ a st i c k> either round or square, about seven feet 

 in length, as large as a fork handle, and pointed 

 at the lower end. If the ground be stony and 

 hard, the lower end ought to be fitted to an iron 

 socket, pointed. Bore several half-inch holes 

 through it, for the rod R, which should be made 

 of a very tough piece of wood, about as large 

 and elastic as a good whip-stalk. This rod should 

 be about three feet long; and then it may be 

 graduated, by making a mark for two feet, and 

 for two feet three inches, six, and nine inches. 

 This rod should be merely pressed into a hole, 

 _j ? without fastening it, so that when laying a foun 

 dation on very high or low blocks, it may be 

 raised or lowered, as may be necessary. Always 

 work up hill, in laying any kind of rail fence ; 

 because, when we begin at the bottom of a decliv 

 ity and work upwards, the rails will lay more level than the incli 

 nation of the ground; and, if we work down a declivity, the rails will 

 be more inclined than the ground, and will not stand as firmly as if 

 it were made by working up hill. When a string of fence extends 

 over rolling or undulating land, the proper mode of making it is, 

 to lay the bottom rail the whole distance, and then go back and 

 change those corners in that part of the fence which was laid by 

 beginning at the top a declivity, so that in laying up more rails 

 the operator can work up hill, both ways, from a valley. The 

 next thing in order will be to decide upon 



THE AMOUNT OF WORM, OR CROOK, FOR A FENCE. 



78. The length of rails must usually determine the amount of 

 worm for a fence. Long rails require much more worm, or crook, 

 than short ones, in order to have the corners of each kind of rails 

 of the same angle. Suppose, for example, that rails are nine feet 

 long, and we wish to give the fence which is made of them three 

 feet worm, i. e., the fence will occupy, measuring across the fence, 



A FK.VCE RULE. 



