THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. Ill 



angle with the surface of the ground. Many farmers like a style 

 of fence called 



HALF WIRE AND HALF WOOD FENCE, 



130. Or, a board and wire fence. The posts for such a fence 

 may be set, as shown at Fig. 34, paragraph 124, and a top board 

 and bottom board be nailed on above the ridge of earth, and two or 

 three wires fastened on the posts, . between these boards, with 

 staples. Three wires between the bottom and top boards, when 

 there is a ridge of earth along the fence, will turn sheep. 



131. I have a fence four and a half feet high, thirty rods in 

 length, with only a top sugar maple-board four inches wide, and 

 three number eleven wires below it, with a ridge of earth twenty 

 inches high, which has turned most effectually, ever since it was 

 built, (four years since,) calves, cows, oxen, horses and colts; and 

 they have never broken a wire, although crops were always on 

 the other side of it. I own a young bull, which made many 

 desperate efforts to get through it, without any success. The 

 posts are eight feet apart, and the wires were never strained as 

 they ought to have been, because it was my first experiment in 

 using wire ; and I see no reason, at present, why that fence will 

 not remain permanent, as it now is, for ten or fifteen years to 

 come. I state this to show what three small wires and one nar 

 row board have done. 



132. Fig. 38 represents a substantial barn-yard board fence. 

 As such fences should always be tight, i. e., no spaces between 

 the boards, on account of shielding animals from cold winds when 

 they are not in their stalls, the best, neatest, and most economical 

 manner of building them is, to set the posts three feet deep, and 

 frame the rails, which should be of scantling, not less than three 

 by three inches square, from post to post, as in building picket 

 fence, and nail the boards to the corners instead of the sides 

 of the rails. (See Fig. 49.) Such a fence should be about 

 six feet high. In that case the top rail should be about four 

 feet from the ground, and the bottom rail about twenty inches 

 from the ground. It looks better and is better, all things 



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