284 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



The expense of a fence made of timber, say posl 

 and rail, which is the most common in the vicinity 

 of this place, is seventy-five cents for each panel of 

 a four-rail fence to those who have their fencing to 

 purchase and the labour to pay ; that is, seventy-five 

 dollars for one hundred panels, which, compared 

 with the same length of hedging, places the case, 

 for a perishable material, with thirteen years of the 



time gone $75 00 



And for a hedge growing better every year 29 50 



Leaving $45 50 



as a balance in favour of sixty perches and ten feet 

 distance : what this will amount to on a large farm 

 I shall leave to the owner's calculation. 



I may farther remark, the labour of making live 

 fence can be done by weak hands if rightly direct- 

 ed : my plashing was done by a man seventy-four 

 years of age. The making of rails and handling 

 them require a person in the prime of life ; and ev- 

 ery stage of the process of erecting wooden fences 

 is laborious, besides the destruction of much valua- 

 ble timber, which in some neighbourhoods is a heavy 

 tax on the owner. 



Each neighbourhood may make their calculations 

 of fences made of timber. According to circum- 

 stances attending the hedge, calculations may be 

 relied on, if the foregoing rules and remarks are 

 strictly attended to, which will a^pply to either kind 

 of thorn ; but it was the " Virginia parsley-leafed 

 thorn" of Marshall's catalogue of forest-trees that 

 was preferred, and which grows spontaneously from 

 this place to the South as far as the Mississippi ; and 

 I have no doubt of its thriving in a northern lati- 

 tude, seeing no bad effect from the winters of our 

 Delaware climate, although I had a section plashed 

 in the midst of winter to prove the consequence. 



The hedge may be considered as made in seven 

 years from the time of planting, as it is only trim- 



