30 BULLETIN 321, U. S. DEPAETMENT OE AGEICTJLTUEE. 
COST OF MAINTENANCE OF FARM FENCES. 
As stated on a previous page, the cost of maintaining farm fences 
consists of (1) the interest charge on the money invested, (2) the 
annual depreciation charges, (3) repairs, (4) interest on the value 
of the land which is covered by fence rows and from which the 
farmer derives comparatively little or in some cases no benefit, and 
(5) the expense of keeping down weeds. 
The interest charge is usually reckoned on the prevailing rate of 
interest on half the cost of a new fence, or it may be reckoned on the 
average present value of the fences on the farm. 
The depreciation charge is determined wholly by the life of the 
fence. If this is 20 years, the annual depreciation charge would be 
one-twentieth of the first cost of the fence. 
COST OF REPAIRS. 
The repair charge will vary with the kind of fences used. The two 
most important factors influencing them are the quality of the fence 
and the use to which it is subjected. If the fence is built from good 
materials and is well constructed, the annual repair bill will be 
greatly lessened. A fence placed around a stockyard or pasture field 
will be subjected to harder treatment than one around fields where 
stock seldom reach it. Also, certain kinds of stock and some indi- 
vidual animals are harder on a fence than others. The repair charges 
on a fence are light during the early life of the fence, and increase as 
the fence grows older. There is, however, one item of expense which 
has to be considered as much with a new as an old fence. This is the 
cleaning up of the fence row and keeping it free from grass, weeds, 
and brush. It is estimated that the cost of keeping fence rows free 
from weeds, etc., amounts to 1 per cent per rod per year. 
Table 8 has been computed from a large number of estimates 
furnished by farmers in the Central States. The figures show that 
wire fences are by far the cheapest to keep in repair. 
Table 8. — Average annual cost of repair per rod for several of the most com- 
monly used fences. 
Kind of fence. 
Number 
of esti- 
mates. 
Cost of 
repair 
per rod. 
Kind of fence. 
Number 
of esti- 
mates. 
Cost of 
repair 
per rod- 
Woven wire 
787 
290 
26 
SO. 024 
.025 
.051 
Rail 
89 
17 
1,067 
$0,045 
.047 
.043 
Barbed wire 
Picket 
Board 
Hedge 
Detailed records covering the cost of repair of woven-wire fence 
along its right of way for a period of 4 years were furnished by one 
of the large eastern railroads. These figures, although slightly higher 
than those in the table, check very closely with them. The annual 
charge for the upkeep of hedge given in this table covers the cost of 
trimming the hedge. It has been found by averaging a large number 
of estimates that when hedge is trimmed once a j^ear a man can trim 
30 rods per day ; when it is trimmed twice a year a man can trim 70 
rods a day ; and when it is trimmed three times a year a man can trim 
110 rods a day. The cost of keeping the various kinds of wooden 
fences in repair is very high. 
