364 



FARM DEVELOPMENT 



price of a wire fence. Besides, a wire fence is neces- 

 sary to protect the hedge and restrain the animals while 

 the hedge is passing through the first few years of its 

 growth. There are particular places where a hedge is 

 useful as an ornament as well as to serve as a fence, 

 and the purposes of ornamentation may properly be 



combined with the useful about 

 the farmstead. In some cases 

 growing willows, or other 

 trees, may serve as posts to 

 which wire fencing may be at- 

 tached, thus in part serving as 

 a hedge. But, as a rule, the 

 better way is to purchase 

 posts or grow the posts in the 

 forest plantation in the farm- 

 stead or on a separate part of 

 the farm, or use reinforced 

 cement posts, and then make 

 simple post and wire fences. 



Stone fences were much 

 used in the earlier times to 

 inclose those fields which sup- 

 plied an abundance of this 

 kind of fencing material, but 

 unless the stones are of such 

 form and size that they can be 

 so laid that the fence can stand 



long without repairing, this kind of fence is expensive 

 to construct and costly to keep in repair. As a rule, it 

 is economy, even where stones are abundant, to collect 

 them into piles neatly laid up, and use posts and wire 

 for fences. Unless stones are very abundant on the 

 farm, or in the neighborhood, there will be other and 

 more practical uses for them. 



Paddock fences. Within the farmstead special fences 



Figure 249. Tool for splicing wires. 



