LIVE POSTS-WIRE FENCES, ETC. 
267 
have been expended. In this case, as in all 
others, improvement has increased the price of 
all the surrounding land, to double or treble 
the former prices. Mr. B. has lately bought an 
old field, which, according to the old order of 
Yankee farming, has lain untouched by the plow 
for a quarter of a century. He paid $150 an 
acre; but it is doubtful whether the owner ever 
made interest on a fourth of that sum from its 
poor pasturage. Through the lot runs a small 
stream, and of course a row of alders along its 
bank. The first step was to clear off all the 
brush and roots, and dig a draining ditch, take 
out a bed of muck, about three feet deep, and 
cover over the surface of the whole field, until 
it was as black as charcoal, to lay and freeze 
and thaw till spring, then'receive a good coat of 
ashes, and be plowed under. Another portion 
formed a great compost heap with stable ma¬ 
nure, and occasionally the carcass of a dead 
horse, or other domestic animal, which many 
farmers throw away, worthless. In the effort to 
plow deep, he discovered a valuable bed of stone. 
Another field, lying in the same condition of 
eternal pasture, he bought for $60 dollars an 
acre, and has purchased a few acres of swamp 
near it, to get muck for manure. Another small 
lot he is underdrainirig. He is doing these things 
not so much with a view to profit, as to gratify 
his taste for making improvement, and also to 
show his neighbors that there is no need of their 
old barren fields, lying almost worthless all over 
the country, for they can be easily renovated 
and made as fertile as the virgin lands of the 
west. He has made a small trial of guano, 
which, if it succeeds well, will enable him to 
renovate the old fields very cheaply. I hope 
his success may be commensurate with his pub¬ 
lic spirit and desire to create a disposition 
among the people to improve their land, by a bet¬ 
ter and more enlightened system of agriculture. 
It is a pity the same spirit is not more univer¬ 
sal. Notwithstanding the great improvements 
that have taken place in this state, within a few 
years, there is room for greater ones. 
Solon Robinson. 
LIVE POSTS-WIRE FENCES, ETC. 
Under the caption of “ wire fences,” in the 
June number of the Agriculturist, I see a state¬ 
ment that a wire fence has been built for $200 
per mile, sufficient to turn cattle, horses, &c. 
Cheap as this may appear, I think I can offer a 
plan of constructing a fence sufficient to turn 
cattle, at afar less cost, say $10 or $12 per mile, 
which, if it prove practicable, would be some 
saving. 
The plan I propose, is, to procure about eight 
quarts of long-leaved pine seed, and sow them 
on a breadth of land where the fence is wanted, 
not exceeding two feet in width. There is no 
danger of getting them too thick, the thicker the 
better—say as thick as you would sow buck¬ 
wheat, I should think might answer. They will 
require the cattle and other stock to be kept 
from them for about four years, but will need 
neither cultivation nor attention of any kind, ex¬ 
cept to destroy the worms which will be likely to 
attack some of them, in the month of June, in 
the second, third and fourth years, after which* 
they will be out of danger of worms and stock: 
and, by the sixth or seventh years, cattle could 
not force their way through them, and if they 
come thick enough, there will be but little dan¬ 
ger to be apprehended from animals of the small¬ 
er kind. 
I have a pine thicket now growing, not sown, 
however, with design of fence, in many places 
of which a sucking pig of a few weeks old could 
not pass between them, and I infer, if the pines 
will grow so close without arrangement, they 
would do the same with. The above is a theory 
based upon observation. You can take it for 
what it is worth; but I intend to put it into prac¬ 
tice the coming winter, to some extent. Should 
it prove practicable to make a fence of this de¬ 
scription, large farms could be enclosed with it 
without much loss, especially when land is 
cheap, and a great deal of waste land, or com¬ 
mons might be enclosed. 
In regard to live posts for wire fence, it occurs 
to me that pines would be better adapted than 
any other kind of wood, as they would grow 
large enough in a few years; and I think the 
turpentine would prevent corrosion of the wire. 
Should this prove correct, I think there could be 
nothing more suitable; for they are rather more 
a fertiliser than exhauster, of poor land, at least, 
and I think they would add to the beauty of the 
farm. Fancy to yourself a farm handsomely 
laid off with rows of evergreens at intervals of 4b 
or 50 feet in a row. Do you not think it would 
be an improvement on the zig-zag fence of the 
present day ? As for the ground occupied, wheat, I 
think, would grow up to the very roots of the tree. 
I have just harvested wheat five feet high, with¬ 
in the distance of a common cart track from a 
row of pines, in places thick enough for fence 
themselves. Corn is growing on the opposite 
side, and looks quite healthy within a few feet 
of the trees. This row is about one eighth of a 
mile in length, sowed with the design of seeding: 
an old field, which the introduction of guano* 
has saved the trouble. I now intend to thin 
it out on the plan above proposed, and insert 
wires with a handsaw, and hope to make a 
formidable fence. Z * * * 
Delaware. 
TO RESTORE PEAR TREES. 
The doyenne or vergouleuse pear is worth¬ 
less here. Ths fruit commences cracking when 
a little more than half grown, becomes woody, 
and in some years very few or none ripen. Our 
soil appears to need some compound to bring 
the fruit, to maturity. I had two seedling trees 
more than thirty years old, which never pro¬ 
duced any fruit. About seven or eight years 
ago, as an experiment to make them bear, I cut 
on three sides of each of their trunks, with an 
axe, about an inch and a half deep. This had 
the desired effect—they have produced fruit 
more or less ever since. 
Pear trees may be set out near buildings, so 
that their roots may extend under them, where 
the soils generally light and moist, and contains 
more or less saltpetre. Hawley B. Rogers. 
' Huntington , L. I ., May, 1850. 
