BARB WIRE FENCES. 219 



every purpose ; and during the whole summer I never saw a 

 cow attempt to reach through the fence. I ran two wires 

 along. The cows would go up to the fence, and feel of it 

 by putting their noses against it, and that was all the 

 acquaintance with the barbed wire that they cared to have, 

 and after that they would go on their way. 



The next season I removed a wall from the front of my 

 house to the opposite side of the road, where there was a 

 row of elm trees, and I extended two wires along and 

 attached them to those elm trees. After awhile, I wanted 

 to drive my cows through where there was no barbed wire. 

 They went through for a time, and formed a path where they 

 had been in the habit of going night and morning. A little 

 later, I wished to close up that avenue, and also to put up a 

 gate, so that the neighbors' cattle, in case they came on to 

 the highway, should not get into my field. I closed that 

 gap across where the cows had been in the habit of going 

 night and morning. At night, when they were driven up, I 

 had the curiosity to see what they w^ould do with the fence, 

 expecting those cows would come down and come in contact 

 with it. Instead of that, they came out into the road, 

 passed along to the gateway, and did not attempt to go near 

 that wire fence. Having made its acquaintance formerly, 

 they recognized the character of that wire which I had put 

 across the path they had been accustomed to travel, at a dis- 

 tance of a rod and a half. 



This last autumn I wished to cut off a part of an orchard 

 where I had some land which I did uot wish to have my cows 

 walk over. They had got in there before, and got a taste 

 of some of the apples in that part of the orchard. I got 

 some Avire and fastened two strands of it to the apple trees, 

 that were thirty-three feet apart, with a single staple ; and 

 in the morning, when the cows were turned out, they went 

 at once down into the field, and walked the whole length of 

 the wire fence, and then turned and walked back in proces- 

 sion, some twenty or thirty head of them, and then went 

 about their business. 



There was a piece of old rail fence against a cornfield, 

 with some young stock and a bull in the field adjoining, and 

 the bull found out that there was corn in that field, so he 



