THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 77 



large flat block of wood for the stake to stand on, while it is held 

 erect with one hand arid sharpened with an axe in the other 

 hand. Cut a little hollow in the top of the block so that the 

 stakes, when being sharpened, will not slip off the block. The 

 stakes must be sharpened true, or else they will not drive well. 

 (See SHAKPENING POSTS, paragraph 79.) When the fence is 

 made four, five, or six rails high, as may suit the caprice of the 

 builder, the caps are put on, and then one or two rails more are 

 laid on the fence. If stone can be obtained of sufficient size, 

 one may be put between each pair of stakes under each cap, 

 and one above each cap, which stone will carry up the fence 

 the height of two rails. Some farmers put on two caps to 

 each pair of stakes, when the fence is to be unusually high, but 

 when stakes are driven twenty inches, or more, in dry ground, 

 and a cap put on three or four feet from the ground, two caps 

 are not necessary. In lieu of caps many farmers use wire 

 for holding the stakes together, which, by many, is considered 

 preferable to caps. Good annealed wire is used about 9 or 1 is 

 the right size (see Fig. 30) and after being put around a pair of 

 stakes, and cut partly in two with a file and broken, the two ends 

 are either hooked together or twisted together. If the wire be 

 large and stiff it is best to hook the ends together, as they can 

 readily be taken off the stakes when it becomes necessary to 

 repair the fence. Wire is cheaper than caps when one must 

 advance cash for making them, and by drawing it up tight around 

 the stakes it will bury into them, and the weight of all the rails 

 above the wires will rest on the stakes, thus tending to keep the 

 stakes in the ground when the frost has lifted them upwards. A 

 fence, with the stakes set at each joiat, one on each side of the 

 fence, will resist a greater force than when they are set in the 

 acute angles on each side of the joint, as shown in the figure. 



MAKING FENCE CAPS. 



87. The cheapest and most expeditious way of making fence 

 caps, when a saw-mill is near at 'hand, is, to have the logs sawed 

 into stuff about two by seven inches, or one and a half inches by 



