Some Pacts in Conclusion. 39 



than any other material agency now before the public. It holds the herds to 

 their pasture, and from the cultivated field. It protects life and property 

 along the railway lines. It fixes the boundary as a barrier about the immense 

 ranche. It makes secure against thieves, the small estate of the fruit grower 

 and the raiser of choice crops. It defies the roving pig as a Southern institu- 

 tion, and the mutton stealing dog as the scourge of the flocks. It makes 

 possible for the South the best rewards of mixed husbandry. 



7. It commends itself to the largest land owner, with whom the cheapness of 

 fence material is of the utmost importance. It meets the changed condition 

 of Southern farms and landed properties, where multiplication of small land 

 owners makes importint the better maintenance of boundaries. To avoid 

 complications and controversies, good fencing is a necessity. The tendency 

 throughout the South and Southwest is to smaller farms, and better enclosures 

 on large tracts. Even in Texas the former practice of free range is being 

 abandoned. Contests were constantly occurring between the cattle-herders 

 and the shepherds. Sheep breeders, therefore, began gradually to purchase 

 all the lands required ; and, at present, the greater part of the land in the 

 sheep-region is held in freehold by the respective flock-masters. About fifty 

 miles from Corpus Christi, in Nueces County, 80,000 acres are being en- 

 closed in one vast pasture by a Barb Wire fence, at a cost of $16,000. 



An incorporated company for sheep breeding has been formed in Southern 

 Missouri, 150 miles from St. Louis. The incorporators propose to locate 

 30,000 acres of land on the side of the Ozark Mountains, and to start with 

 4,000 sheep fenced in at less cost than herdsmen can be employed. They ex- 

 pect to bring the land under cultivation at an early day, and to graze the 

 sheep on blue and tame grass instead of on bunch grass ; also to provide 

 shelter and winter feed for the flocks, with other necessary improvements as 

 needed. This is more sensible than the Colorado system, which relies on 

 pasturing or starvation in the winter ; and how fully does this apply to the 

 present argument. 



The traveller by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad is astonished 

 to see running straight across the prairie from west to east, a short distance 

 below Springer station, a Barb Wire Fence, which marks the Southern boundary 

 of the famous Maxwell Grant, of New Mexico, of over one million acres, which 

 is thus fenced in on the south and east, making the longest lines of continuous 

 fence in the world, inclosing a pasture of seven hundred thousand acres. By 

 this means the vast herds are kept on their owners' land, and other herds 

 excluded. Including the inner inclosures for such separation of cattle as may 

 be desired, there are upwards of two hundred miles of Barb Wire Fence on 

 this Grant. Some of the inner inclosures are ten miles square. Let any one 

 estimate the great saving of cost, on tracts of these magnitudes, by the use of 

 Barb Fence, as compared with any other known fencing. 



The history of the connection of the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing 

 Company and I. L. Ellwood & Co. with the Barb Fencing may be briefly 

 told. As the largest general wire manufacturers in this country, our works 

 at Grove Street and Quinsigamond, in the city of Worcester, Mass., being 

 the largest exclusively wire manufacturing establishment in the world, Wash- 

 burn & Moen Manufacturing Company have for twenty-five years past had a 

 broader and more intimate relation with fencing and fence topics than any and 

 all other parties in this country. For many years after the first introduction 

 of plain iron wire as fencing material, our works were among the largest 

 sources of supply, our improved process of galvanizing having created a high 

 character for our wire. On the introduction of the principle of arming the 

 Wire with the Barb, we became principally instrumental in bringing together 

 the various patents to produce a perfect product ; also in the introduction by 

 us of an entirely new class of automatic machinery for the manufacture of 



