The Fence Question in the South. 



At a very early day in South Carolina a plaintiff plead the local custom of 

 the place and recovered half the cost of a partition fence, on appeal the 

 court above holding the custom a good one. (2 Brevard 07). The Supreme 

 Court of Alabama a few years since declared that the legal obligation of 

 tenants of adjoining lands to make and maintain partition fences depends 

 entirely upon statutory provisions. (24 Ala. 310). A Maryland decision of 

 the .highest court holds that where no act of the legislature exists, the princi- 

 ples of common law prevail, and unless by force of prescription one need 

 not fence against an adjoining close, but he is bound at his peril to keep his 

 cattle on his own land. (11 Md. 340.) 



Nor have these prescriptions as to the legal and sufficient fence been dis- 

 placed by the stringent ordinances that in many of the states forbid cattle 

 going at large. In states where stray animals have been for yeaiVprohibited 

 under severe penalties, such obligation to fence remains unchanged. So far 

 from becoming obsolete, amendments to existing fence laws and sj T stems are 

 numerous ard recent in many of the states, and, as before shown, a stringent 

 fence law is sure to be among the first to be placed upon the statute books of 

 new states and territories. Indeed, there is no part of the United States where 

 a good and sufficient fence is not either specifically enjoined, or it is made 

 the land owner's interest, if he be also a planter, to build one. 



'"THE LEGAL FENCE" IN THE SOUTH. 



According to U. S. Report for 1871, more than one-half of the farm area is 

 woodland. Worm fence is almost the exclusive mode, the proportion being 

 96 per cent. Garden and homestead fences are generally of palings. In re- 

 turns from 37 counties in North Carolina there is only a single record of post 

 and rail fence. Five feet is the legal height fixed for fences in most, if not all 

 the cotton States. Chestnut, oak and pine are the woods most used. In 

 Mississippi half the counties report that no other fence but worm is in use. 

 In some of the Louisiana parishes where hedges had been in extensive use, 

 these have largely died out from the effects of frost and neglect, and injuiy 

 during the war. About two-thirds of the inclosures of Louisiana are sur- 

 rounded with the Virginia fence. 



Worm fence constitutes three-fourths of the fencing in Texas. Live fence 

 is used in many portions of the state. Ditches 5 feet deep, 6 feet wide at the 

 top, and three feet at the bottom, the earth thrown up on the side of the field 

 enclosed, are made in sections where timber is not easy to be produced. 



In Virginia and Maryland a lawful fence is thus described : 



" A lawful fence must be 4 feet high if made of stone, and 5 feet high if made with any other 

 material, and so close that the beast breaking into the same could not creep through; or with a 

 hedge 2 feet high upon a ditch 3 feet deep and 3 feet broad; or, instead of such a hedge, a rail 

 fence, of 2 1-2 feet high, the hedge or fence being so close that none of the creatures aforesaid 

 can creep through." 



The height and character of the legal fence in the Southern States vary 

 but slightly, though a wide selection of material is allowed. Throughout the 

 South, adhering more strictly to English models of emphatic fencing, the pre- 

 scriptions have universally called for a fence from six to twelve inches higher 

 Hum is required in other parts of the United States ; FIVE FEET being the almost 

 universal height of the legal fence in the South. 



Indeed by very many who are interested in the relation of the fence ques- 

 tion to the developement of southern farming, it is held to be injurious and 

 oppressive that the fence required under the law, and by custom, needs not 

 only a greater height than in other states, but far greater closeness at the bot- 

 tom than is usual in any other parts of this country. Pig-tight fences are 

 very expensive, and yet in many districts the pig dominates in fence consider- 

 tions to an extent widely beginning to be complained of. Many f:inni>rs :ind 



