No. 144 ] 147 



planks at the bottom of the pickets. I had this fenee made in 

 wet weather when farm work generally could not be done by my 

 men. I have also tried iron wire fencing. I set posts on the de- 

 sired line, or select a tree if on the line. I stretch the wire 

 from one outei* post to the other, and then set the intermediate 

 posts to exactly touch the wire. I then drive a wrought nail into 

 the liead of the post under the wire, and then clinch the nail up- 

 ward over the wire to hold it in its place. I stretch, then, four 

 other wires below the first, all of them are stretched tight enough 

 to be musical. I used wire JYo. 9. The posts were seven feet 

 apart, the fence v/as strong enough to keep the cattle in or out — 

 a cheap fence. The iron was annealed, that is necessary to ren- 

 der it sufficiently soft. 



Mr. Solon Robinson proposed, as a subject for the next meet- 

 ing, " Weeding, and the cultivation of spring and summer crops, 

 and the best manner and best tools to doit." Adopted, 



Mr. Coleman, of Brooklyn, exhibited his model fences and 

 fence beehives, and made full explanations of his method of mak- 

 ing and setting them. He uses three rails, bored at such angles 

 as are necessary to preserve the vertical position of their pickets 

 in all inclinations of the land. The pickets are turned to an ex- 

 act diameter and length, and pointed. His machine turns out 

 ten such pickets in a minute, or one thousand feet in ten hours. 

 They, the pickets and rails, cost him one dollar the ten running 

 feet. A man, with two boys to help, can make five hundred feet 

 of ray fence in one day. Cedar posts are desirable if we can get 

 them cheap enough. In adjusting the perpendicularity of my 

 posts and pickets, I use a plummet level, which is necessary, as 

 any variation from the perpendicular offends the eye. Mr. Coleman 

 remarked on, and exhibited by his model fence, the great facility as 

 to gates anywhere from a gate twenty feet wide to one of only 

 two. As a movable fence for pastures, nothing can be more con- 

 venient. It is only necessary to draw out a picket at each corner 

 of the proposed enclosure, then placing the end holes of the rails 

 under each other, and passing the picket through, so forming a 

 hinge, enabling one to set it at any angle you please. Mr. Cole- 

 man showed a map of his Maryland farm, on which he has di- 



