228 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



tage. The wire might be used with white cedar 

 posts, and be made to last a long time. If this 

 fence looks too bare to please the eye a row of 

 arbor vita might be set out in front of it. For a 

 design for an economical farm he said he had never 

 seen any so perfect as the lands at Mount Vernon, 

 the home of Washington. He closed by alluding 

 again to the opinion that it is best to have but one 

 enclosure on the farm, and to keep the cattle up 

 and soil them. 



Mr. Tudor, of Boston, spoke of a kind of fence 

 which he has introduced on his lands at Nahant, 

 with the object of changing the climate. In 1825 

 he built a cottage there, which was in the midst 

 of a cow pasture, in a very exposed situation ; the 

 winds would cause the doors of his house to slam, 

 and would blow out his lamps. He then built 

 some lattice fences, made of laths, from 16 to 18 

 feet high , which he estimated excluded about two- 

 thirds of the wind. This produced a great change. 

 Where before no trees would grow, he can now 

 raise, under shelter of the fences, the finest varie- 

 ties of fruits and flowers. On the 13th of March, 

 he sent to his man at Nahant, to examine the 

 ground in different places to see what effect these 

 fences had upon the frost entering the ground. 

 The first land from which returns were made, was 

 in a situation exposed to the N. W. wind, and 

 showed frost to the depth of 24 inches ; where the 

 wind was intersected by one of these lath fences ; 

 the land having a southern slope — the frost was 7 

 inches deep ; where it passed through three of 

 them from 10 to 13 rods apart, 1 1-2 inches and 

 in a large part, no frost at all ; all this land was 

 in a state of open cultivation. This experiment 

 shows that the wind in passing takes the heat 

 from the earth ; and these fences exclude the wind 

 while they leave the air to pass over the land. In 

 regard to the influence of these fences upon the at- 

 mosphere, he could describe it no better than by 

 saying that when he is cold on his other land he 

 goes into his garden to get warm. They are very 

 effectual in keeping out marauders, and can be 

 built quite cheap. A fence which he built in 1834 

 is now standing, and in good order. 



Mr. Sheldon, of Wilmington, next took the 

 floor. My remarks, he said, are not intended for 

 the gentleman's front yard or the lady's posey 

 garden, but for the farmer who produces for the 

 great family of mankind — beef, pork, mutton, ev- 

 ery kind of grain, all sorts of vegetables and fruit. 

 If he had a meadow to fence, he should dig a 

 ditch ; the mud carried on to the upland will pay 

 the labor. If he has stony land where he wishes 

 to raise an orchard, dig out the stones and lay 

 them into a wall. The soil under the wall will 

 be worth more to the roots of the trees than any 

 other part of the field. If he has a field where 

 there is no stone, let him build a rail fence. Sev 

 enteen years ago, Mr. Flint, of North Reading, 



and myself, made an agreement with Hon. Jas. 

 F. Baldwin, of this city, to build a rail fence on 

 each side of a new road between Wobum Centre 

 and North Wobum. This fence stood 14 years 

 before I ever noticed a post or rail much out of 

 place. Since then on dry, sandy land it has failed 

 considerable; on the low ground it is good yet. I 

 should think it is now worth to the owner 40 cents 

 per rod. The cost of the fence when built was 

 56 1-4 cents per rod. This fence was made from 

 cedar slabs. 



There are large portions of our land in Massa- 

 chusetts that may be profitably fenced with what 

 I should call a living fence ; not by thorn bushes, 

 but by sowing on the poorest dry land, in a line 

 where you wish for a fence, pitch pine seeds ; on 

 cold flat lands white pine seeds or sow the seeds 

 of any tree such as the nature of the land is cal- 

 culated to produce — such as Acorns, Chestnuts, 

 Beechnuts, Horse Chestnuts, White Maple and 

 Sugar Maple. The main point is to sow that 

 which is natural to the soil. Be sure to sow all 

 these kinds thick enough. This may be done by 

 running a plow along and sowing in the furrow 

 and at the outer edge of the furrow. The pines 

 will be likely to produce you a sufficient fence in 

 ten years, and in thirty years you would be likely 

 to have noble rows of trees all around your farm 

 wherever you had sown seeds, and if at any time 

 you wished to point out the boundary of your 

 farm to any person at a distance from you, it 

 would be easier and pleasanter to point them to a 

 long row of tall trees, than to a little hedge of 

 thorn bushes. This kind of fence I would recom- 

 mend to railroad corporations. Let each man 

 who has charge of a section of the road sow the 

 seeds inside of their old fence. I would also re- 

 commend to new railroad corporations where the 

 line of their road runs through, to take one rod of 

 extra land for the purpose of raising trees for 

 fence on the sides of their roads. If these trees 

 should not grow near enough together to stop cat- 

 tle, it will be easy to cut rails the right length 

 from tree to tree, placing the ends against the 

 trees and they will soon grow tight. 



I think I have forgotten to mention the Locust, 

 which would be one of the very best among the 

 hard wood, and Red Cedar among the Pines. 



Maj. Wheeler, of Framingham, believed that 

 where rocks can be obtained stone walls are the 

 cheapest kind of fence. He agreed with the idea 

 that some farms are generally cut up into too small 

 lots. The only advantage in thus sub-dividing the 

 land is to get rid of the stone. He does not think 

 it profitable to keep cattle up and soil them ; it 

 costs too much labor, and is too expensive, and he 

 had found that cows would give more milk by be- 

 ing allowed to go into the fields and select their 

 food for themselves. He estimated that a cow will 

 eat 200 lbs. of green fodder a day, and it is too 



