CO-OPEEATION 1$ FARMING. 251 



boldly for homes of their own, and for liberty to di- 

 rect their own labor, whether they should settle on 

 the frontier in the manner just outlined, or should 

 buy a tract of cheap land on Long Island, in New- 

 Jersey, Maryland, or some State further South. I 

 cannot doubt that the majority of them would work 

 their way up to independence ; and this very much 

 sooner, and after undergoing far less privation, than 

 almost every pioneer who has plunged alone into the 

 primitive forest or struck out upon the broad prairie 

 and there made himself a farm. 



The insatiable demand for fencing is one of the 

 pioneer's many trials. Though he has cleared off 

 but three acres of forest during his first Fall and 

 "Winter, he must surround those acres with a stout 

 fence, or all he grows w r ill be devoured by hungry 

 cattle his own, if no others. "Whether he adds two 

 or ten acres to his clearing during the next year, they 

 must in turn be surrounded by a fence ; and nothing 

 short of a very stout one will answer : so he goes on 

 clearing and fencing, usually burning up a part of 

 his fence whenever he burns over his new clearing ; 

 then building a new one around this, which will have 

 to be sacrificed in its turn. I believe that many pio- 

 neers have devoted as much time to fencing their 

 fields as to tilling them throughout their first six or 

 eight years. 



It is different with those who settle on broad 

 prairies, but not essentially better. Each pioneer 

 must fence his patch of tillage with material which 



