FEXCE3 A JO) FENCING. 221 



fit to turn animals into the street, should send some 

 one with them who will be sure to keep them out of 

 mischief, which browsing young trees in a forest 

 clearly is. 



If the inhabitants of a settlement or village sur- 

 rounded by open prairie, see fit to pasture their cattle 

 thereon, they should send them out each morning in 

 the charge of a well-mounted herdsmen, whose duty 

 should be summed up in keeping them from evil- 

 doing by day and bringing them safely back to their 

 yard or yards at nightfall. 



Fencing bears with special severity on the pioneer 

 class, who are least able to afford the outlay. The 

 " clearing" of the pioneer's first year in the wilderness, 

 being enlarged by ax and fire, needs a new and far 

 longer environment next year ; and so through sub- 

 sequent years until clearing is at an end. Many a 

 pioneer is thus impelled to devote a large share of 

 his time to Fencing ; and yet his crops often come to 

 grief through the depredations of his own or his 

 neighbor's breachy cattle. 



Fences produce nothing but unwelcome bushes, 

 briers and weeds. So far as they may be necessary, 

 they are a deplorable necessity. When constructed 

 where they are not really needed, they evince costly 

 folly. I think I could point out farms which would 

 not sell to-day for the cost of rebuilding their present 

 fences. 



We cannot make open drains or ditches serve for 

 fences in this country, as they sometimes do in milder 



