36 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



When we remember that ordinarily there is not more 

 than three or four acres of grass-bearing land to the mile of 

 highway, it will be seen how penny-wise the farmers are who 

 insist on pasturing it. Even where it is desirable to keep all 

 the land fenced, our stock is much more likely to break out if 

 stock is feeding along the highway. In my own neighborhood 

 the law is so perfectly enforced that for three years I have had 

 no front gate, and stock coming in would have free access to over 

 one hundred acres of land, several of which is cultivated in gar- 

 den and nursery stock. 



The June flood of 1882 in this neighborhood did more to se- 

 cure the enforcement of the stock law than years of agitation 

 would have done. Coming as it did within a week or two of 

 harvest, and sweeping away more fence than was ever known to 

 go in a single flood, it was actually impossible to replace it at 

 that time, and all stock was shut up, and many of the farmers, 

 finding that they could grow crops without fences even along 

 the streams where the extra amount of waste land made the 

 temptation to turn stock on the highways greatest have never 

 replaced their fences and never will. This has relieved the own- 

 ers of bottom lands from a heavy tax, for their fences are often 

 swept away. 



I would advise farmers everywhere to agitate this question 

 of prohibiting stock from running at large. If your State has no 

 law on the subject, petition for one. If you have a law, enforce 

 it. One man can not do this alone, but whenever you can get a 

 number of farmers to unite and post a notice that all stock run- 

 ning at large will be impounded, you will have no further 

 difficulty. 



The third method of reducing the expense of fencing by 

 adopting cheaper methods, you will find illustrated and described 

 under the appropriate heads of this chapter. It seems hardly 

 worth while to devote space to the rail fence, for it is fast disap- 

 pearing, and with the ever increasing scarcity of timber and the 

 facilities for transportation afforded by our railroads, there are 

 few localities where rail fences will be replaced. 



