266 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Interest, at six per cent, of the first cost, . $4,020,000 



The original cost, divided among ten years, is. 6,700,000 



Total, , $10,720,000 



If this enormous expense were necessary, of course it must be borne, 

 and cheerfully, as wise men should endure all that is inevitable. But 

 when it is considered that it results from an Unwise and erroneous system, 

 no time should be lost in bringing about a reform. 



The farmers in this country were formed and educated under the system 

 of fences— a system founded upon the notion that a man is bound to pro- 

 tect his property by fencing out the World. That the law has no power ; 

 that a general respect for the rights of property has no existence ; but 

 that you must fence out all intruders, and guard your property with walls 

 and fences, if you desire to enjoy it as your own. In feudal times, when 

 might stood in the place of right, such a notion might Very properly be 

 entertained ; and, in fact, we seem to have derived Our system of fences 

 from those days, when castles and battlements and fenced holds consti- 

 tuted the only protection to proprietary rights, and the warlike owners of 

 those strong places acted upon the principle that all cattle within their 

 reach were stray cattle, which they had a right to impound at pleasure. 



The whole system is founded upon an erroneous notion. The law does 

 protect a man's property. His real estate and its products are his, and they 

 lie under the protection of the law, whether fenced or unfenced. Any 

 man invading his land, either in person, or with his flocks or his herds, is 

 liable for all damage. He has no more legal right to ravage, or to send 

 his cattle to destroy his neighbor's unfenced grain, than he has to cut 

 down his neighbor's unfenced woods. They are all equally under the pro- 

 tection of the law ; and our farmers throughout the State should enforce 

 that principle, and they will, by saving the periodical outlay of fencing, 

 nearly double their net profits. The idea that cattle can be lawfully 

 turned out upon the road to get their living upon the closely cropped road 

 sides, and to be taught by hunger to break through and leap over any weak 

 fence into a better pasture, is most injurious to the agricultural interest, 

 as well as dishonest in principle. What would be thought of a father who 

 should bring up his children, before instructing them in the principles of 

 right and wrong, to get their living on the highway ? And where is the 

 difference, in a moral point of view, between the one and the other ? 



A man has no greater right to bring up his cattle in dishonest practices 

 than he has to educate his family to live by theft. Let him teach a dog to 

 snatch a lady's reticule from her hand, or a turkey from a poulterer's stall, 

 and to bring his booty home, and the master would be held responsible by 

 the law. But many seem to think that cattle may be brought up to habits 

 of the same sort without any legal responsibility, and that the occupant of 

 a shanty may keep a hog to be let out every morning to get his living by 

 prowling on the highway, watching his opportunity to slip in open gates, or 

 to insinuate his snout so as to open them for himself, and then, with his 



