98 COMMON SENSE 
poor materials. A great point is to place the rails flat, so that a 
good size nail may be driven wholly into solid wood. 
With a supply of panels like this, and a proper Humber of stakes 
or posts,a yard can be put together in a very short time. The 
first thing, for those who are not used to the work, is to roughly 
lay out the yard, marking the corners with small stakes or mark- 
ers. If there is to be a gate, the place where it should come ought 
to be marked, and the house ought to be in position before the 
yard is laid out. My houses had strong “screw eyes” at the cor- 
ners where the fence joined them, and to these the outside picket 
of the first panel of fence was tied either with strong cord or with 
wire.* The panel was then held in position, and a hole made 
with a crowbar just at the place where the post should be set. Thé 
post or stake is then driven into the ground to a depth depending 
upon the character of the soil. This work is done by means of a 
wooden mallet or maul with a long handle. We made the mallet 
ourselves out of a piece of a tree, using an old hoe handle for a 
handle, With such a mallet a man or stout boy can drive a stake 
3 inches in diameter into the ground so deeply that no common 
animal can push it over. The untied end of the first panel is then 
placed against one side of this post, and the end of another panel 
against the other side, and both are tied to the stake either with 
tarred cord or soft wire. The second panel is then placed so that 
it and the first panel form a straight piece of fencing, and the point 
where the second post should come is marked with a crowbar of 
“hole opener,” as we call it. ‘This hole opener is of peculiar 
shape. It consists of a long bar of iron or steel, with a pear-shaped 
ball at the lower end, as shown in Figure 8. Such a crowbar, 
if pointed with tempered steel, can be driven two feet into hard 
ground with great rapidity and ease, while a common crowbar would 
require hard and protracted, labor. The heavy point is first driven 
in, and the bar rocked a little in two or three directions. It is 
then raised and again driven into the hole with as much force as 
possible, and again rocked. This operation is repeated until the 
. *The wire that comes off baled hay answers very well for this purpose, and 
may be had for almost nothing from those that use this kind of hay. 
