196 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



exact type in each fowl, then you have got to pursue an 

 entirely diflferent course. You have got to select your 

 fowls of a certain type, and breed to a certain strain. 

 These strains, if selected with care, are always beautiful to 

 look upon ; the feathers are pencilled alike ; and, by occa- 

 sionally putting in a bird that is not closely related, you can 

 bring out fowls of distinct breeds and strains. I have 

 myself, in breeding the game, bred poultry so nearly alike 

 that you could take a dozen pullets six months old and 

 you would not be able to distinguish one from the other. 

 But this requires a great deal of care, very close selection 

 and breeding, and weeding out, in order to bring poultry or 

 any other creature to a uniform type. 



The Chairman. If there is nathing more to be said on 

 the subject of poultry, we will next take up the very interest- 

 ing question of barbed wire fence, on which Mr. Henry 

 M. Smith will read a paper. 



BARB WIRE AND THE FENCE QUESTION. 



BY HENRY M. SMITH, WORCESTEH, MASS. 



The average farmer or land owner designing to build a fence 

 does not ordinarily deem it needful to search among historical 

 facts and statistics for the solution of his special needs. 

 He builds a fence because he accepts the fence as necessary, 

 and only cares to decide as to material and construction. 



But the fact that fencing is one of the first questions in 

 land possession rests upon something wider than indi- 

 vidual needs and decisions as regards his own property. 

 Though these broader considerations may lightly occupy 

 the attention of the actual fence-builder, and he yields to 

 the practices they have created, yet the fence question has 

 a meaning and value with all who have responsibilities con- 

 nected with farm property and progress. A representative 

 body, like the gathering of the Massachusetts Board of 

 Agriculture, with a past record of investigation touching 

 all the topics of our husbandry, long ago found the fence 

 question one of the most important problems of our Ameri- 

 can agriculture. 



Within the past few seasons a new fence material has 



