BARB WIRE FENCES. 197 



come into use. Its employment, in breadth and amount, 

 is represented by very striking figures. But these facts 

 and figures cannot be given tlieir due weight without some 

 consideration of the fence question, of which they form a 

 part. So that the topic of the present occasion, Barb 

 Wire and the Fence Question, suggests something more 

 than the mere statistics of wire and the assertions of man- 

 ufacturers eager to extol their products. 



COST OF FEXCES. 



Here are some of the figures of fencing derived from 

 ofiicial sources. We have in the United States something 

 over six million miles of fences, pretty equally distributed 

 through all our farming regions. Taking the usual averages 

 of cost of materials before the introduction of barb wire, 

 the fences of the United States are held to represent an 

 outlay of over nineteen hundred millions of dollars, about 

 one-twelfth of our entire fiirm wealth, and a goodly sum 

 upon which to fasten a saving, in future expenditure, of 

 from one-third to one-half, if the claim of barb wire be 

 sustained. And a figure of this magnitude goes well 

 before this other statement, that over four hundred and 

 fifty thousand miles of barb-wire fence have been built in 

 the past seven seasons, for presented by itself alone this 

 last might awaken incredulity. In 1871 the results of the 

 inquiry instituted by the United States Board of Agricul- 

 ture (^Report United States Department Agriculture, 1871) 

 gave $93,963,187 as the outlay for fences in the year 1869. 

 The bulletin of the census of 1880 shows an outlay of 

 $78,629 for building and repairing fences in 1879. 



Fences — Cost of building and repairing, 1879. 



[Census Bulletin.] 



Total United States . . . . . . $78,629,009. 



