SECRETARY'S REPORT. 89 



sand farms. Her fences had cost !i)25,000,000 ; the repairs 

 requh'e $2,500,000 annually; six percent, interest is $1,500,000, 

 and a renewal once in twenty years would be -11,250,000, 

 making the total yearly expense <|5,250,000. Now Massachu- 

 setts has thirty-four thousand farms, and we get at the amount 

 of fencing in two ways, by which we arrive at very nearly the 

 same results. By taking about the average cost of fencing on 

 each farm in Pennsylvania and also in Maine, about $700, and 

 multiplying it into the number of farms in Massachusetts, we 

 get about $23,000,000 as the cost of all the farm fences in the 

 Commonwealth. Another way of estimating them is as fallows : 

 We call the average size of improved fields throughout the 

 State not to exceed ten acres, in some counties it is less, in 

 some it may' be more. There being two millions one hundred 

 and thirty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-six acres of 

 improved land in the State, each of the thirty-four thousand 

 farms will have about sixty-two acres, each of which is subdi- 

 vided into enclosures of ten acres each, making two hundred 

 aiid ten thousand eight hundred fields ; the number of rods 

 around a ten-acre lot is one hundred and seventy, which multi- 

 plied by the whole number of fields gives thirty-five million 

 eight hundred and thirty-six thousand rods of fencing, provided 

 each lot was disconnected from any other, but probably two- 

 thirds of the various lots are connected with others, which 

 enclose unimproved land and highways, which are not included 

 in this estimate ; this will reduce the amount about one-third, 

 or to about twenty-three million rods of fencing ; and no one 

 could estimate the fences through the State under a dollar a 

 rod ; a large part, including most of the stone walls, would cost 

 much more than that. The interest at six per cent, on this 

 sum would be $1,380,000 ; if we add to that, repairs annually 

 ten per cent., or $2,300,000, and the cost of renewal at the end 

 of twenty years of one-half the whole fencing, we have the 

 enormous sum of $4,250,000 annually for fences, or $125 

 annually on each and every farm in this Commonwealth. 



Let us now consider the cost of fencing different-sized fields. 

 On an oblong field of two acres, the fencing will be seventy-six 

 rods, which, at one dollar per rod will cost thirty-eight dollars 

 per acre ; a field of five acres costs twenty-five dollars, ten 

 acres seventeen dollars, one hundred acres five dollars and 



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