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LAW— EVERY MAN HIS OWN LAWYER- 



fence is not a legal one. For placing in 

 ..an inclosure any stakes, pits, poison, or 

 .anything which may kill or injure stock, 

 a penalty of $50 is provided. Partition 

 fences must be equally maintained. Fences 

 in Mississippi are required to be five feet 

 high, substantially and closely built with 

 plank, pickets, hedges, or other substan- 

 tial materials, or by raising the ground 

 into a ridge two and a half feet high and 

 erecting thereon a fence of common rails 

 or other materials two and a half feet in 

 height. Owners of adjoining lands, or 

 lessees thereof for more than two years, 

 are required to contribute equally to the 

 erection of fences, if the lands are in 

 cultivation are used for pasturing. No 

 owner is bound to contribute to the 

 .erection of a dividing fence when pre- 

 pared to erect a fence of his own, and to 

 leave a lane on his own land be- 

 tween himself and the adjoining own- 

 <er; but the failure to erect such fence 

 for sixty days is deemed an abandon- 

 ment of the intention to do so, 

 .and determination to adopt the fence 

 ..already built. 



Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, 

 Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. — In 

 Texas every gardener, farmer, or planter 

 is required to maintain a fence around 

 his cultivated lands at least five feet high 

 and sufficiently close to prevent hogs 

 from passing through it, not leaving a 

 space of more than six inches in any one 

 place within three feet of the ground. 

 Fences in Arkansas must be five feet 

 high. In all disputed cases the sufficiency 

 .of a fence is to be determined by three 

 disinterested householders, appointed by 

 a justice of the peace. Division fences 

 are provided for as in the majority of the 

 ■other States. In Tennessee every 

 planter is required to make a fence around 

 Jus cultivated land at least five feet high. 

 When any trespass occurs a justice of 

 the peace will appoint two freeholders to 

 view the fence as to its sufficiency, and to 

 ascertain damages. If a person, whose 

 fence is insufficient, should injure any 

 animal which may have come upon his 

 lands, he is responsible in damages. In 

 case of dispute between the parties as 

 to a division fence, a justice of the peace 

 will appoint three disinterested free- 

 holders to determine the proportion to 

 l5vs maintained by each. No owner, 



whose fence is exclusively on his own 

 land, can be compelled to allow his 

 neighbor to join it. In Kentucky all 

 sound and strong fences of rails, plank, or 

 iron, five feet high, and so close that 

 cattle and other stock cannot creep 

 through, or made of stone or brick four 

 and a half feet high, are deemed legal 

 fences. Division fences cannot be 

 removed without consent of the party on 

 adjoining land, except between November 

 1 and March 1 in any year, six months' 

 notice having been given. In Missouri 

 all fields must be inclosed by hedge or 

 fence. Hedges must be five feet high; 

 fences of posts and rails, posts and 

 palings posts and plank, or palisades, four 

 and a half feet; turf, four feet, with 

 trenches on either side three feet wide at 

 top and three feet deep ; worm fence at 

 least five feet high to top of rider, or, if 

 not ridered, five feet to top rail, and 

 corner locked with strong poles rails or 

 stakes. Double damage may be recov- 

 ered from any person maiming or killing 

 animals within his inclosure if adjudged 

 insufficient. In Illinois fences must be 

 five feet high. The laws regulating 

 division fences are similar to those of the 

 New England States. In cases of dis- 

 pute three disinterested householders 

 decide as to the sufficiency of any fence. 

 Proprietors of commons may make their 

 own regulations. Line fenoes are pro- 

 tected on public highways. In Indiana 

 any structure or hedge, or ditch, in the 

 nature of a fence, used for purposes of 

 inclosure, which shall, on the testimony 

 of skillful men, appear to be sufficient, is 

 a lawful fence. 



Ohio and Wisconsin. — The laws of 

 Ohio provide that whenever a fence is 

 erected by any person on the line of his 

 land, and the person owning the land ad- 

 joining shall make an enclosure on the 

 opposite side, the latter shall pay one- 

 half the value of the fence as far as it an- 

 swers the purpose of a division fence, to 

 be adjudged by the township trustees. 

 A legal fence in Wisconsin is four and a 

 half feet high if of rails, timber, boards, 

 or stone walls or their combinations, or 

 other things which shall be deemed equiv- 

 lent thereto in the judgment of the fence- 

 viewers. While adjoining parties culti- 

 vate lands they must keep up fences in 

 equal shares ; double value of building or 



