XXIV 



QUALITY IN WIRE FENCING 



Complaints of Short Life of Fencing — Users Partly Re- 

 sponsible — Salt Air Deteriorating — Five Points on 

 Quality — Manufacturer and Consumer — The Com- 

 moner Grades — Improvements — Heavier Wires — 

 Favorite Meshes. 



This matter of wire fencing and its quality, so impor- 

 tant to nearly all who work with poultry, has been en- 

 tirely overlooked or ignored in all the poultry books 

 with which I am familiar. Indeed, the two which claim 

 especially to be books of reference on all poultry topics 

 have not a word to say about fencings. The United 

 States government, on the contrary, has found that the 

 farmers and poultry raisers of the country were being 

 fleeced to such an extent in the matter of light wire 

 fencings — generally spoken of as wire net, or wire 

 netting — that it has put out a special information Bul- 

 letin, on "The Corrosion of Fence Wire." The Agri- 

 cultural Yearbook of 1906 has this reference to the 

 work, showing the reason for its inception, and the im- 

 mediate outcome : — 



"Owing to the numerous complaints of farmers in re- 

 gard to the rapid deterioration of the modern fence wire 

 in comparison with that manufactured in former years, 

 an investigation of the subject was begun, to see what 

 could be done to remedy the defect. Farmers' Bulletin 

 239 contains a report of this investigation, which has 

 aroused tlie interest of manufacturers and has deter- 



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