CHAPTER XII 

 FENCES 



During the last quarter of a century the cost of fenc- 

 ing fields has been greatly reduced by the discovery of 

 new fence materials. Fences have been devised which 

 are much more durable and which will better restrain 

 stock of all kinds than any rail, post, board or hedge 

 fences. The reduced price of wire and the manifold 

 inventions for drawing wire and making it into forms 

 suitable for fences, have brought about an iron age in 

 fence building. A half century ago most of the American 

 farms were fenced with laboriously made stone walls or 

 rail fences, the latter sometimes named worm fences, and 

 aptly called by foreigners " The Yankee zig-zag." Now 

 one can travel across the continent without seeing a 

 newly made fence rail; and in many places the rock 

 crusher is grinding up the stone fences for material 

 with which to macadamize the highways. Iron wire 

 was one of the great aids in opening up the vast prairies 

 of the Mississippi basin for agricultural purposes ; it now 

 has a very large influence in promoting the live stock 

 and general agricultural interests. Barbed wires were 

 invented at the proper time to enable the farmers to 

 subdue the great prairies on a scale of extensive farm- 

 ing. Smooth-woven wire has now taken such a prac- 

 tical form and is obtainable at such reasonable prices 

 that more comprehensive field and farm management, 

 with live stock as a leading feature, is being inaugurated 

 as the permanent system of management on American 

 farms. Nowhere is there such an opportunity for carry- 

 ing out the broad principles of scientific farm manage- 

 ment as on American farms, and nowhere else is 



355 



