44 Appendix The Lumber Supply. 



in three States, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; therefore the amount of logs cut annually 

 hecomes a matter that is both interesting and serious. At the present rate, admitting the cor- 

 rectness of all the figures, and making no allowance for continual growth, the lumber industry 

 can extend over only twelve years more. It is a fact well known to all interested in the 

 preservation of our forests, that new belts should be planted to pine, or else we shall shortly 

 suffer greatly for one of the necessities of life. American Agriculturist, June, 1881. 



Early use of Wire Fence. 



The Journal of the Franklin Institute (Philadelphia), Jan., 1830, referring to a patent 

 for a wire fence, says: " There is no novelty in the invention. Fences of wire were common 

 in England many years ago. They were also used in this country, particularly in the neighbor- 

 hood of Philadelphia, fifteen or twenty years since. Messrs. "White & Hazard, who at that 

 time had a Wire Manufactory at the falls of the Schuylkill, erected many wire fences in the 

 neighborhood of their establishment." 



An Early Fence Law. 



" Remembering the severall inconviencyes and multiplicity of suits and vexations arising from 

 the insuffiency of fences, whieh to remedy in the old town hath been so difficult, yet in our re- 

 moval to the place appointed for the new towne may easily be prevented It is therefore ordered 

 that all fences, generall and particular, at the first setting up shall be mayde so sufficient as to 

 keep out all manner of swyne and other cattle, great or small, and at whose fence or part of 

 fence any swyne or other cattle shall breake through, the party owning the fence shall not only 

 bear and suffer all the damages, but shall further piy for each rod so insufficient, the somme 

 of two shillings. It is likewise ordered that the owners of all such cattle as the town shall 

 declare unruly or excessively different from all other cattle shall pay all the damages that unruly 

 cattle shall do in breaking through fences." (Town Records of Newbury, Mass., 1644.) 



The French Land System. 



Theorists, advocating the open field system, so frequently draw their i' lustrations from the 

 French land system, that a view 01 French rural life will be of interest. Says a late writer: 



"The interest and economy of the French are wonderful, and their power of paying their war 

 debt has attracted the admiration of o r people, who have a much more serious debt on their 

 hands. It is error, however, to ascribe the thrift of the French people to the subdivision of their 

 land. 



" It appears that of the 38,000,000 of people, 4,000,000 are able to live without work or business, 

 and that 20,000,000 of the people live in the country, and are near'y all of them cultivators of land. 

 It is well that before we are carried too far in admiration of French agriculture, and the minute 

 divison of land, we find out how it is that the farmers there are liable to send away so much of 

 the fruits of their three acres and a half ; how they send to England in a year $11,000,000 worth 

 of butter and $9,000,000 worth ( f eggs. We shall find that it was by going without themselves. 

 The ability of the French peasants to live on a cheap and limited fare 'is almost proverbial, and 

 they are by necessity cu> off from the means of acquiring knowledge, and are subjected by their 

 incessant toil, and the character of it, to a degraded social life. It may be cheerful, for the re is no 

 knowledge of any better." 



An English artist, who has resided many years in a rural district in France Phillip Gilbert 

 Hamerton says of the peasant farmers tha' they farm profitably "only by incessant toil, and a 

 woucJerful sobriety, frugality, and self-denial." Even the middle classes live with great frugal- 

 ity, but their food is well prepared, "cookery with them is a well understoo art, but the peas- 

 antry are utterly ignorant of it," "they being frugal above all things, avoid it, as an indulgence 

 which is not for them." The poorest laborer's family in America is far better supplied than the 

 French farmer's family, though the latter may own the soil. 



ERRATA. 



PAGE 21. Eighteenth line : for "200 Ibs." read 100 Ibs. PAGE 29. First line: for " Census of 1870," read 

 Census of 1890. 



