HINDRANCES TO SUCCESSFUL FARMING. 89 



contains about onc-tcnth of water ; but green wood holds 

 35 per cent, of water, or 160 gallons of water to every solid 

 cord, — about 1,280 pounds, — considerably over half a ton ; 

 and the farmer who hauls in twenty cords of green wood 

 draws about thirteen tons or over eighty barrels of water. 

 When green wood is used for fuel all this water must be 

 evaporated, and the latent heat for doing it is five times as 

 great as to heat the water to boiling ; consequently, to evap- 

 orate the water of a solid cord of wood requires as much 

 heat as to boil 780 gallons of water. 



Wood will season best under cover If well ventilated ; but 

 if wood is hauled up green in the winter, it is better that it 

 should be cut and split, that the winds of March and April 

 may season it to a considerable extent before it is piled away ; 

 and every farmer ought to have a wood shed large enough 

 to hold a year's supply of dry wood, never compelling nor 

 allowing green wood to be burned. ^ Not only the economy 

 of the farm demands this, but especially is it demanded by a 

 "decent respect for the opinions of others," in the health, 

 comfort and convenience of the women of the farmer's 

 household. 



Fences. — It is undoubtedly true that one of the greatest 

 items of unnecessary expense and loss, and therefore a hin- 

 drance, is in the unnecessary fences on our farms, and the 

 consequent loss of land covered by and adjacent to them ; 

 and worse even, the fringe of bushes, weeds, and all manner 

 of foul growth, which, on the one side and the other, usurp 

 the land and scatter their noxious seeds often over acres. 



The fence laws of Massachusetts, from a very early period 

 in the history of the colony, witliin twenty years of its settle- 

 ment, have been fixed and particular down to the present 

 time. Owners of adjoining fields are required to keep 

 between them a fence four feet high, in good repair, built of 

 rails, timber, boards, stones, or other things which the fence- 

 viewers shall consider equivalent ; and it has been frequently 

 decided by the courts that no one is compelled to fence on 

 the highway ; and consequently, if cattle turned out on the 

 road to graze do damage on the land of another, their owner 

 is responsible. Railways are required to fence the lines of 

 their roads. And that is the gist of the fence law in Massa- 

 chusetts. 



