156 I Assembly 



sand acres, and the great scarcity of fencing material, the quan- 

 tity wasted, and the distance this was to be had and carried for 

 use, made it too tedious and expensive an operation. Two or 

 three adjoining farms in a similar state would aid each other in 

 the plan by keeping their stock about their buildings with a small 

 quantity of fencing material made for mutual convenience. Other 

 planters and farmers have told me that they did not keep slaves 

 as such, they sometimes hired them as they did other laborers; but 

 this is always very difficult to the South, you cannot get them 

 hardly at any price, white or black, in the numberSj and where 

 you want them, for large farming operations^ like fencing, and 

 with materials brought from a great distance. Others who have 

 plenty of fencing mateiials near them, and who use it, by divid- 

 ing their farms into lots for keeping and grazing stock and other 

 purposes, say they can do this much cheaper and with less labor 

 than by throwing their farms open, and raising the feed and car- 

 rying it to their stock when confined about their buildings. The 

 cattle, they have assured me, are healthier by plenty of exercise 

 in the open air, choosing their own feed, drinking when they 

 please, and the land kept in as good, and, perhaps, better state. 

 Our farmers North, on sections of the country that I am best ac- 

 quainted with, would not listen to the system at all, or entertain 

 the idea of putting it in practice for a moment, although the small 

 size of their farms comparatively is better fitted for it. These 

 say at once they would rather see and have the benefit of their 

 rickety, crooked worm fences than adopt, or think of adopting, 

 the rickety^ crooked system of no fences at all. 



Mr. Scott — We know well the loss by the great growth of 

 weeds along our fences, as well as the uselessness of the large 

 amount of land they cover. Fences should be dispensed with, 

 and the stock kept under control. In the Lothians of Scotland 

 there are no fences. (The Lothians is a name common to three 

 counties of Scotland, viz., Haddington, Edinburgh and Linlith- 

 gow shires. East Lothian, or Haddingtonshire, bounded east by 

 the German sea, is one of the most fruitful counties in Scotland. 

 It is about 25 miles long and 15 wide, prod)ices great crops of 

 wheat and other grain, is well watered, abundantly supplied with 

 fish, fowl, fuel, and all the necessaries of life, has many elegant 



