«24 NEW ENGLAND FENCES 



bearing racemes of fruit that the sauntering school- 

 boy lingers to gather. And far from pleasant is it to 

 drive cattle or sheep along such unfenced ways, 

 which they are certain to stray from, and exhaust 

 the breath and patience of him who drives them 

 and endeavors to keep them within the unmarked 

 bounds; moreover, it gives the country a common 

 look in more than one sense, as if nothing were 

 worth keeping in or out. It will be a sad day for 

 the advertiser of patent nostrums, when the road 

 fence of broad, brush-inviting boards ceases to 

 exist, and if we did not know that his evil genius 

 would be certain to devise some blazoning of his 

 balms, liniments, and bitters, quite as odious as 

 this, we should be almost ready to say, away with 

 this temptation. That was a happy device of one 

 of our farmers, who turned the tables on the im- 

 pudent advertiser, by knocking the boards off 

 and then naiUng them on again with the letters 

 facing the field. The cattle stared a Uttle at first 

 at Ridgeway's Ready Restorative, but never took 

 any. 



However, it is not my purpose to speculate con- 

 cerning the fences of the future, nor to devise 

 means for impounding the fields of posterity, but 

 rather to make some record of such fences as we 

 now have, and some that have ah-eady passed 

 away. 



The old settlers, when they had brought a 



