202 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



The principle upon which our American fence system 

 rests has never been more strongly or better told than in an 

 early fence law of the town of Newbury, Mass., in 1644. 



" Remembering the severall inconveniencyes and multiciplicity of suits 

 and vexations arising from the insufficiency of fences which to remedy 

 in the old town hath been so difficult yet in our i-emoval to the place ap- 

 pointed for the new town may be easily 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 or other cattle great and 

 small, and at whose fence or part of fence any swyne or other cattle 

 shall break through, the party owning the fence shall not only beare and 

 suffer all the damages l)ut shall further pay for each rod so insufficient 

 the somme of two shillings. It is likewise ordered that the owner of all 

 such cattle as the town shall declare unruly or excessively different from 

 all other cattle shall pay all the damages that the unruly cattle shall doe 

 in breaking through fences." {Town Records of Newbury, Mass., 1644.) 



Still another law, from the town of Plymouth, twelve 

 years earlier, shows that the fathers made an early test of 

 the open field. 



" Whereas in the beginning and first planting of the Colony it was 

 ordered that all should plant their corn, &e., as neere as might be to the 

 town of Plymouth aforesaid, and for that end an acre of land was 

 allowed and allotted to each person for their own private use, and 

 so to them and their heirs forever and whereas the said acres lay 

 open without enclosure, divers laws and orders have been made to 

 prevent such damage as might befal the whole by kine swine goats »fec. 

 that so by herding and other causes men's labors might be preserved and 

 such damage or loss as fell upon any to be made good by owners of the 

 saiiie cattle trespassing. But since said acres are for the most part 

 worn out, and cattle, by Gods blessing abundantly increasing, and 

 necessity constraining to inclose elsewhere, it was thought meet at a 

 court held the 2nd Jan. 1632 that the former privileges of said acres be 

 laid down, and that as elsewhere no man set corn upon them without 

 enclosure but at his peril." {Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth, 

 1032.) 



At the time of the first settlements in America the com- 

 mon law of England required, as it still requires, every 

 man to take care of his own cattle ; but in this country, 

 where all the lands were new and settlements sparse, it was 

 more convenient to enclose the fields than the pastures. 

 It was absolutely necessary that the cattle should be per- 

 mitted to go at large in the forests and waste land. For 



