68 RANCHING IN THE CANADIAN WEST 



After selecting the piece of land you intend to 

 make your field (and do not forget to include a 

 constant water-supply within its confines), or the 

 place you have determined upon for the vegetable 

 garden, poultry-run, a crop of oats, or other en- 

 closure, the first thing to do is to carefully mark out, 

 by means of a line of pointed stakes, the whole 

 area you intend to fence in. Whatever shape your 

 field may assume, at all costs avoid curves when 

 planning its formation. Each side, whether it be 

 triangular, quadrangular, or many-sided, must be 

 plumb-straight, if you wish to make a good, lasting 

 job of it, and economize your wire. All corner 

 posts, too, must be braced with stout willow braces 

 against the strain of carrying the wire, and the same 

 applies to any posts you may put up to support a 

 gate, so as to enable convenient ingress and egress 

 to the field for stock. 



I would point out here that it seems quite ad- 

 missible for any man to run his field anywhere he 

 chooses on the wide prairie, as long as he does not 

 enclose land actually in the possession (by pur- 

 chase) of another rancher. At all events, it is done, 

 and large tracts of land are fenced in and used by 

 men who have not an atgoi of legal claim to them, 

 and seem quite put out when a new settler jumps 

 his fence and commences to build a home on a 



