210 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



which is uncultivated and worse than useless. This would leave on 

 both sides of the fence enclosing ten acres, one and one-foui'th acres; on 

 the twenty-three million rods of fencing in the State, thirty-one thou- 

 sand two hundred and fifty acres of land unoccupied, uutilled, a refuge 

 for almost every kind of vermin ihat walks, l!ies, or crawls." (Report 

 Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 1801.) 



The "Annual Register of Rural Affairs" (Albany), in 

 18(50, said that the entire loss to the ten million arable acres 

 of the State of New York from the zigzag form of fences, 

 Avas not less than three hundred thousand acres, or three 

 thousand good farms. The same complaint had been made 

 many years before. I find in the " American Farmer" (Bal- 

 timore), in 1828, a ringing protest against the fence waste. 



The "American Agriculturist" declared, in 1867, that a 

 farm of one hundred and sixty acres, as fenced on many old 

 farms, has twenty acres of land taken up in this worse than 

 useless manner. 



The notes from a farm in Sutton, Mass. {Massachusetts 

 Agricultural Ttei^orts, 1854), show twenty-four acres en- 

 closed in eight different lots, the stone walls actually cover- 

 inof two acres, or onc-twclfth of the tract. 



These are certainly good reasons for 



FENCE EEFORM, 



And this must be sought in a diminished emploj^mcnt of 

 fences ; by securing more perfect fences where enclosures 

 are needed. We cannot have the open cropped field secure 

 unless the beasts are safe in pasture. Wood, as fence mate- 

 rial, is wasteful, because perishable, and is becoming each 

 year more costly. Competent authorities in the lumber 

 trade estimate that in twelve years the whole supply of pine 

 lumber east of the Mississippi will have become exhausted. 

 Stone fences are inadmissible where not absolutely needed 

 as a measure for clearing the rocky field. 



The fence must be lighter in construction to save waste of 

 soil in occupancy and shade. It must be an available mate- 

 rial widely applicable. 



