THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 97 



many instances it is sawed into boards, and that is all. Now, if 

 a board four or five inches wide will subserve as good a purpose 

 in building fence as one seven or eight inches wide, there is a 

 manifest want of economy in preparing the boards for fence ; and 

 if two posts will subserve as good a purpose for every sixteen 

 feet in length of fence, as if they occupied only twelve feet, then 

 there is a lack of economy in using up posts, and nails, and in 

 digging the holes, and in performing most of the other work 

 required to build a board fence. If the builder desires to build 

 a tight board fence, *'. e., one with no spaces between the boards, 

 it will require just about so many feet of boards for a rod, 

 whether they are placed horizontally or vertically. But when 

 an open board fence is to be erected, where economy in lumber 

 and labor is a consideration of any account, the idea which should 

 influence the builder is, to have the boards as long as will be 

 most profitable, and as narrow as will be most consistent, with 

 suitable strength and symmetry, and the spaces between the 

 boards as wide as possible, and turn those animals which the 

 fence is designed to stop from getting on forbidden ground. 



119. Many farmers, and experienced fence- builders, also, have 

 imbibed the notion that the bottom board must of necessity be a 

 foot or more wider than the others, and the second and third 

 still narrower than the bottom board, until the top board is 

 arrived at, which must be narrower than any of the others. "We 

 might, with the same propriety, contend that the bottom rail of 

 a rail fence should be preposterously large, while the top one 

 should be the smallest. There would be just as much consist 

 ency in the latter as in the former. I know it is contended that 

 a board fence looks better when the bottom board is about twice 

 as wide as the top board. But we have all followed in the train 

 of custom in this respect for so long a time, that we have come 

 to think that a board fence looks " odd " and not tasty, if the 

 boards are all of one width, being as narrow as would be con 

 sistent with their strength to turn animals. Had we been accus 

 tomed to see all the boards of a uniform width, it would appear 

 still more odd and deficient in taste, to see a fence built with the 



