114 THE YOUNG FARMERS MANUAL. 



erect position. Five ribs in that position will give a width of 

 nearly eighteen inches, and the spaces thirty inches, which makes 

 a fence four feet high ; but the two lower ribs may be left out 

 and a ridge of earth thrown up in their place, which would be 

 as effectual as a fence five feet high. A two-inch round tenon at 

 the ends of the ribs would be proportionally stronger than the 

 middle of the same stick, eight or ten feet long, when of the size 

 mentioned. Where the timber is all hard wood, it would be 

 quite as economical to saw it into ribs two and a half inches square 

 as into inch boards ; and put them up with nails, because boards 

 of hard wood are, sometimes, ugly and hard things to drive nails 

 through without boring them for the nails. 



SECTION III. WIRE FENCE. 



" Glorious triumphs wire brings ! 

 Wire fences, wire springs ! 

 Wire into " hoops " is curled ! 

 Wire soon will span the world." INGEBSOLL. 



135. The time has been, and it was but a few years ago, too, 

 when wire fences were considered by the great majority of peo 

 ple as an unwise experiment, which could never possibly be 

 attended with success ; and, even in the last decade of years, wire 

 fences have been decried and condemned by many able corres 

 pondents of agricultural journals, which were sound on all the 

 other ordinary subjects connected with the operations of the farm ; 

 and in some instances the editors themselves have imbibed the false 

 inspiration, and have coincided with their respected correspond 

 ents in their views with regard to the certain failure of wire 

 fences, and have denounced wire fence from beginning to end as 

 an " exploded humbug." For many years wire fences were 

 laughed at by almost every one who passed by ; and every old 

 fogy would wag his head and denounce the inventor, and build 

 ers also, as " incorrigible ninnies," and would utter all sorts of 

 most direful prognostications against wire fence, and everything 

 else that resembled it. 



