AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 2*71 



SO I hauled it away, and buried it out of sight to help drain the soil. One 

 more item, illustrative of division fences. Only a few weeks ago, one of 

 my neighbors turned his cows into his own pasture, and they walked o^ er 

 the no fence of the half that his shiftless, do-nothing neighbor should main- 

 tain, and one of them gorged herself with refuse salt, and died. The value 

 of that cow was more than the value of the pasturage of both lots for two 

 years. Charge it as we should ten thousand similar losses, to that bar- 

 barous, wicked law, that says where two men own adjoining land, each 

 shall build one-half the fence, and if he does not maintain it according to 

 law, he shall have no right of action for damages from trespassing animals. 

 That law I hope to live to see abrogated, and in its place these simple 

 words : " Every man shall fence in his own stock ; no man shall be obliged 

 to fence his neighbor's stock out. It shall not be deemed a trespass to kill 

 any hog running in the public highway, or that comes upon any one's 

 premises. All trespassing animals may be shut up, or put to work, or 

 used upon the premises trespassed upon, until the owner pays all damages 

 and cost of keeping ; and he shall have no action of recovery until all such 

 damages are paid. If a person kills a trespassing animal, he shall only be 

 liable to the owner for the value, after deducting damages and cost of 

 keeping. All animals running at large in the highway shall be accounted 

 trespassing animals." Such a " fence law " as that I am willing "to live 

 under. Can any honest man say that he is not ? 



Mr. Kingsbury. — I have lately been reading about the fence laws of the 

 Goths — a people that we call barbarians — and I find that their practices 

 were not half as much entitled to the appellation of barbarism as our own. 

 I find it impossible to live in the country near this city, in any comfort, on 

 account of cattle running at large. 



John Harold. — We have some experience of cattle running at large. 

 We have in Hempstead, L. I., 12,000 acres of common land; but, notwith- 

 standing this large pasture, it does not keep the cattle out of our lanes, or 

 from pushing into our gardens and lots. The system of fencing in our 

 town has a direct tendency to make men dishonest. He illustrated the 

 very great folly of allowing such a tract of laud as the Hempstead plains 

 to lay in the wasteful condition of a public pasture. The lands upon 

 these plains that have been put under cultivation, prove to be of the very 

 best character, and of easy cultivation, and naturally well drained. 



Some twenty years ago I bought twenty acres of these lands — some that 

 had been cultivated and worn out. I found a hard-pan three inches below 

 the surfcice, which had been made by shallow plowing. I plowed this ten 

 inches deep; my neighbors said I had utterly ruined my land, by plowing 

 up the "yaller dirt." But the frost of one winter mellowed it down, and 

 next year I manured and planted potatoes, and the next year sowed wheat, 

 and in spite of the prophecy of my neighbors, I got a most excellent crop. 

 I had, upon seven acres, 34 bushels per acre, which was so good that I 

 sold it for seed at $2.50 a bushel. Then my neighbors said that I had got 

 the wheat by manure, and a favorable season, but I never could, they said» 



