No. 4.] COUNTRY ROADS. 257 



not look so well. Then there is another thing. If your 

 house stands on a corner lot in a village you cannot remove 

 your fence, because, if you do, every child and every dog 

 goes over your land. 



I have never known any serious difficulty occurring from 

 the removal of fences along the country roads. We have 

 for many years been strict in regard to allowing cattle to 

 run at large, and we suffer very little from that source. I 

 constantly see cattle driven from one point to another, 

 through streets and across the country, and very seldom is 

 there any mischief done. The men who drive cattle 

 are anxious, on account of the law or from the kindness 

 of disposition which is inherent in every man who cultivates 

 the soil, to take care of their cattle. The removal of fences 

 is a most desirable thing ; it is more desirable than almost 

 anything else in the management of our farms. If we could 

 remove the interior fences, except those that are necessary 

 to guard the cultivated land from our stock, it would be of 

 the greatest assistance to us in our farming operations. It 

 would be a very desirable thing to remove the fences so as 

 to have clear fields, parallelograms or squares, where you 

 can drive your horses right up to where the fence was, turn 

 and come back, and cut a long, straight furrow. Plough 

 with horses with such a plough as you think best, harrow 

 the ground with the Dow or Randall harrow, then follow it 

 with the Thomas and make a good seed-bed ; plant your 

 corn (I am talking about that particularly now) with a 

 corn-planter and cultivate it with a horse-machine, never 

 putting a hoe into it except perhaps to cut down any 

 straggling weeds. There is not a farmer who has an acre 

 of cultivatable land in this State who cannot raise corn for 

 thirty cents a bushel. I can prove that by better cultivators 

 than I am. We pay sixty cents a bushel for Western 

 corn, when we can grow it here for thirty cents ; but our 

 trouble is that it costs so much for labor. 



On this roadside question there is much that might be 

 said. Mr. Bowker spoke charmingly about having the 

 roadsides lined with elms and the beautiful maple with its 

 golden leaves, and I, too, admire to see them ; but I declare 

 that if I have got to take with them the yellow daisy, the 



