SPIRIT OF THE MONTHLIES. 349 



sonal conflicts, sometimes ending with the death of one or both of 

 the parlies to it, law suits, and lasting ill-feeUngs among neighbors, 

 than all other causes put together. 



2. They cost immense sums of money. 



8. They take up at least two to tiirce acres out of every hundred 

 of the land. 



4. They harbor large numbers of vermin, and are a complete 

 nursery for bushes and every noxious weed iliat grows. 



5. They are much in the way of plowing, harrowing, and other- 

 wise working the land ; and unless a considerable number of gales 

 are erected along their lines, tiiey make it inconvenient getting to 

 the fields ; and by the circuits which have to be taken, greatly in- 

 crease the distances in carting out manure, bringing home the crops, 

 and driving the stock to and fro. 



(3 They have a sensible effect in delaying the warmth of spring, 

 by occasioning snow-drifis and water puddles. Land, for a strip of 

 several feet wide, on the north side of the fences, docs not become 

 dry and warm ami tit for working so soon as in the open fields, by 

 at least three to seven days. This is frequently highly vexatious to 

 the farmer, and positively injurious in causing delay in his plowing 

 and planting. 



7. They totally mar the beauty of the landscape, and make the 

 fields look as if they were all imprisoned. Strangers coming among 

 us from an unfenced country, unquestionably at first sight think us 

 and our cattle awfully vicious to require such ugly hedging in and 

 around. 



All the above objections to fences, must strike the reader as so 

 plain and forcible, that they need but one elucidaiion, and that is as 

 to their cost ; and for a calculation of this, we will take New- York 

 as an average example of one twentieth part of the Union. 



This State is supposed to contain a surface of 30,000,000 acres. 

 Deduct one half for unenclosed lands and water, and it leaves 

 15,000,000. Wc are of opinion that the average size of fields here 

 is about 15 acres ; but we will suppose, for fear of making too large 

 a calculation, that they average 20 acres. To surround one of these, 

 allowing a trifle for inequalities of surface, it would require 230 

 rods of fence. On account of numerous roads and lanes, all of this 

 does not answer for division fences ; instead, then, of throwing half 

 of It off for this purpose, we will suppose 110 rods enough, and 

 call the remainder (120 rods) sufiicient on the average for each 20 

 acre field. Dividing 15,000,000 acres by 20, they make 750,000 

 fields : these multiplied by 120 rods, the length of fence requisite 

 to enclose each field, make 90,000,000 rods. Farm fences cost, in 

 this State, from 40 cents to 150 per rod. We will suppose, on an 

 average, that the cost is 75 cents per rod ; this would amount to the 

 enormous sum of |67,500,000 for fencing iNew-York alone. Now, 

 allowing this to be one twentieth the cost of all the fences in the 

 United Slates, the result would be ^1,350,000,000 ! These enclo- 



