134 



FEN 



FEN 



circumstance should occur. When 

 a farmer on the other hand, farms 

 within his capital, he is enabled to 

 embrace every favourable oppor- 

 tunity of buying with advantage, 

 while he is not eompelled, if the 

 markets are low, to sell with loss." 

 Code of Agriculture. 



FENCE, a hedge, wall, ditch, or 

 other inclosing made about farms, 

 or parts of farms, to exclude cattle, 

 or include them. Fencing is a 

 matter of great consequence with 

 farmers ; and, as it is managed in 

 most parts of this country, is a great 

 drawback upon their profits. But 

 however costly fencing may be, it 

 is good economy to make fences 

 strong and fully sufficient to answer 

 their purpose. It would be folly 

 to save a trifle by making a fence 

 too slightly, and be liable to lose a 

 whole crop, by the breaking of cat- 

 tle through it. 



The kinds offence, and manner 

 of fencing, should vary according 

 to the difference of soils ; and ac- 

 cording as one kind of materials 

 for fencing is more plenty and 

 cheap than another. 



In the new plantations of this 

 country, log fences are most used ; 

 as they certainly ought to be ; be- 

 cause the wood is of little or no 

 value. To build these fences 

 with, the best wood that I am ac- 

 quainted with is white pine. A 

 fence built with logs of this kind 

 will stand twenty years, with little 

 or no repairing. 



But if this kind of wood be not 

 at hand, and other sorts be plenty 

 and near, it may be as well to make 

 use of some other kinds : Such, for 

 instance, as pitch pine, Norway 



pine, hemlock, ash, oak, and white 

 maple. Several, or almost any of 

 these kinds, if they do not lie too 

 near to the ground, will last for a 

 considerable time. If a fence be 

 made partly of white pine, and 

 partly of other wood, the former 

 should be laid nearest to the 

 ground. 



But let farmers beware of build- 

 ing their log fences of bass wood, 

 poplar, birch, beach, or rock ma- 

 ple, unless in cases of necessity ; 

 for as they will be soon rotten, the 

 labour of building them is in a man- 

 ner lost. If logs are peeled they 

 will last the longer in fences. The 

 largest logs should lie lowest in a 

 fence, both for strength and dura- 

 bleness. The lowest are soonest 

 rotten, when all are of the same 

 size ; and the largest logs will last 

 longest. 



Log fences should always be 

 braced with strong stakes across ; 

 and heavy riders add strength to a 

 fence. 



When ground is wholly subdued, 

 and the stumps of its original growth 

 of trees quite rotted out, if stones 

 can be had without carrying too 

 far, stone walls are the fences that 

 ought to be made. Though the 

 cost may be greater at tirst than 

 that of some other fences, they will 

 prove to be the cheapest in the 

 end. Building stone walls is not 

 only the way to clear ground of a 

 bad incumbrance ; but when the 

 fence is made, it is certainly the 

 best of all fences. On a hard, sandy, 

 or gravelly bottom, if built with 

 good stones, a wall will stand many 

 years without any repairing. And 

 it will stand well on any soil, clay 



