206 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



increasingly costly from the distance from the fields where 

 the gpfeen crops grow. 



To show how little attractive our American farmers would 

 find the much praised French farm system, Dr. Loring, in 

 his admirable paper on the Problem of American Land- 

 holding, deserves to be quoted here. 



" It is true thai the French farmers are citizens of a republic, and are 

 owners of the soil on which they live ; but it is a republic without the 

 traditions of freedom; a soil divided among them by violence before 

 they had I'eached the point of citizenship — there the home of the Ameri- 

 can farmer is not found. 



"The American farmhouse is almost unknown. The peasantry 

 gather for the night into crowded towns far away from their lands 

 and go forth by day to till their few outlying aci'es." 



Still another writer says of these French farmers : — 



" It is an eiTor to ascribe the thrift of the French people to the sub- 

 division of their land. We shall find it arises fi-om their habit of going 

 without themselves. The ability of the French peasants to live on a 

 cheap and limited fare is proverbial. They are by necessity cut off from 

 the means of acquiring knowledge, are subjected to incessant toil, and a 

 degraded social life." 



THE "no-fence" LAAVS. 



But it will be asked, is not the no-fence principle being 

 tried on an extended scale in some of our States ? What of 

 the Herd Law in Kansas, and the no-fence systems, so called, 

 of Virginia, North Carolina and other Southern States? The 

 reply, in brief, is that in neither of these systems is there an 

 attempt to do without fences. The Kansas Herd Law of 

 1872 was designed to meet the pressing facts of vast herds 

 feeding at large on open ranges among scattered farms of 

 new and in most cases poor farmers, with all fence material 

 scarce, and a need of protection which fences alone could 

 give under the general law. The General Fence Law of 

 Kansas still remains in force, but the several counties have 

 the option to set it aside within their own limits, and declare 

 common law in force within the same. It is recognized by 

 the citizens themselves as a conflict between herd-raisers and 

 planters. Forty- one counties have adopted the Herd Law. 

 Thirty counties remain under the General Fence LaAv. But 

 who can fail to see that the Kansas Herd Law makes neces- 



