224 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



mine told me a story with regard to the ease with which his 

 cattle went through one of the early kinds of wire fence. 

 He said it disappeared. He did not know the fence was 

 there. I think very likely. A large animal scratching 

 against that wire would cause it to give way. 



Question. Does it not break where it is stapled? 



Mr. BowDiTCH. If you drive the staples too hard. But 

 it has broken with me directly between the staples. I don't 

 think the barb- wire fence is good for sheep, for the reason 

 that they will pull their wool off by rubbing against it. 

 Perhaps the barbs will not go through and strike the skin 

 any more than to produce a pleasant irritation, which they 

 like, and the consequence will be, you will find your fences 

 lined with little tufts of wool. 



Mr. Sedgwick. I have a sheep pasture fenced with barbed 

 wire, and it answers an admirable purpose. Not only that, 

 but the fence is on the roadside, and at times the sheep have 

 been troubled by dogs ; but since that wire fence has been 

 there, there has been no trouble at all from that source. I 

 have noticed one trouble, and that is, that where the wire 

 lies under snow-drifts, it almost invariably snaps off in the 

 spring. I don't know but it may be that the wire is drawn 

 a little too tight. It is the four-pointed wire, galvanized. In 

 this connection let me say that I have had a pasture this sum- 

 mer where I kept three horses ; there are sixty rods of wire 

 fence on one side of the pasture, and I have never had any 

 stock of any kind injured by it. 1 have used over fifty-two 

 hundred pounds of the barbed wire for fences the last year. 

 Another thing : it is one of the best things to use on an old 

 stone Avail. If you have an old wall that needs building 

 over, and you have not the time " to do it, just set up a 

 ■few stakes, and put up one or two strands of wire, and you 

 have jrot one of the best fences that can be made. One 

 of the things that I like about it very much is that it 

 won't winter-kill, and it don't burn up. 



Mr. H. M. Sessions of Atlanta, Ga. I have been where 

 there is no other fence but wire fence. The lecturer re- 

 ferred to the fact that wire fences were necessary at the 

 West on account of the prairie fires. We have wire fences 

 down in Georgia to protect against cabin fires. If a wooden 



