16 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
I consider all stock buildings as radically deficient 
in comfort and convenience, that do not shelter from 
the cold winds, that so completely desolate the north¬ 
ern part of the American continent during winter, and 
yet how seldom do we find that this matter is even 
thought of. I know not a barn thus protected in this 
whole region. Had stock growers the least conside¬ 
ration for the well being of their poor dumb animals, 
or regard for their own interests, they would in every 
instance immediately erect wind and rain shelters for 
their cattle ; and however rude at first they might be, 
the gain in growth and economy in feed they would 
find to be greatly increased, much more so than those 
can have the least idea, who have not yet made the 
experiment. Very respectfully yours, 
LA GRANGE. 
Explanation of the Cuts. 
Fig. 17, presents aground plan; Fig. 18, is a north-west 
view of the barn and stables; 1, ), are bays, 20 feet broad; 
2, main passage, threshing floor, &c. 20 feet wide; 3, 3, 3, 3, 
stables, 14 feet wide; 4, 4, 4, 4, passage ways, 5 feet; 5, 5, 
5, 5, stereoraries, 7, feet; 6, 6, yards, 34 by 53; 7, yard, 30 by 
~4; 8, yard, 50 by 54; 9, 10, open sheds for cattle, sheep, 
wagons, A:c.; 11, yard, 50 by 75; 12, yard, 50 by 100. 
Objections to Live Fences. 
Essex co. Virginia, Jan. 17th, 1838. 
Dear Sir, —Your truly valuable paper is taken by 
my oldest son, and I always read it with great inte¬ 
rest, although it occasionally contains articles on which 
1 feel strongly inclined to comment, but have doubted 
whether you would not constantly have on hand nu¬ 
merous other communications better worth publishing 
than any thing I could send you. The spirit, however, 
moveth me so, at present, that I venture to offer you 
some remarks on the subject of live hedges, in oppo¬ 
sition to the views expressed by yourself and others, 
in your January number. 
I assume it as a proposition susceptible almost of 
perfect demonstration, that live hedges cannot be ad¬ 
vantageously adopted, in our country, as a general 
system of inclosure. First, because they are actually 
more expensive, in most situations, than dead fences. 
Secondly, because there are no plants or trees here¬ 
tofore tried among us, except the holly, sufficiently 
exempt from fatal diseases, and easily procurable, to 
render them a safe reliance for hedging. And lastly, 
because the present law of descents—throughout the 
United States, which will never probably be changed 
for the English law of entails and primogeniture,— 
inevitably produces frequent subdivisions of landed es¬ 
tates, and consequent changes in their fences. Let 
us examine these objections seriative. 
That live fences are more expensive than dead ones, 
seems to me manifest, for the following reasons : In 
preparing for your fence, you must dig a large ditch. 
If cedar be used, you must next collect the plants, ac¬ 
cording to Col. Taylor’s plan, and cart them to the 
spot; but there are few portions of the United States 
wherein the cedar grows naturally, and to sprout ber¬ 
ries I know to be a very uncertain process. After 
setting them in double rows, you must continue to cul¬ 
tivate them, once or twice a year, until they attain 
sufficient size and strength to protect the crops from 
what our Yankee friends call, “ breachy cattle;” an 
adjective, by the way, which should be in all our dic¬ 
tionaries, as it forcibly expresses what no other single 
word in our language does. The period necessary for 
this purpose, I assert from my own experience, to be, 
on an average, ten or twelve years, where the hedge 
is of cedar; nay, still longer, unless there be a ditch 
and high bank to aid it. Manure too, must be seve¬ 
ral times applied ; a protective dead fence must also 
be kept up, for several of the first years of its growth, 
to guard against the aforesaid “ breachy ” marauders ; 
and at least one annual pruning must be given forever; 
unless indeed, the hedge be left to grow as nature 
prompts. In this case, if it divides two fields, it soon 
spreads, in such a manner, as to exclude from culture, 
at least one acre of the best land, in about every four 
hundred yards ; whereas a lence of dead wood, or 
stone, or brick, excludes only the very narrow breadth 
on which it stands. Again, the hedge of cedar, even 
in its most perfect state,. is, of itself, no protection 
against hogs that run at large; as they do in Virginia, 
and several other states, for the bottom limbs always 
die after a few years, leaving large open spaces. This 
is particularly the case with Col. Taylor’s cedar- 
hedges, which I have seen three or four times a year, 
ever since they were planted ; although at a little dis¬ 
tance a careless spectator would not probably notice 
it. The ditch-bank on which the hedge stands, is 
generally so steep that hogs cannot climb it; or there 
are numerous places through which they could pass 
with perfect ease. This tendency to die in the lower 
limbs of the cedar, I have noticed in all the hedges of 
it that I have ever seen. But it is more observable 
in Col. Taylor’s than elsewhere, owing, as I believe, 
to an error committed in the early management of it. 
I feel great reluctance to differ from such authority, 
and one too, who was a personal friend to whom I 
was strongly attached for many years before his death. 
But the error, if it be one, is important to all who may 
attempt to make cedar, or any other live hedges, of 
trees that grow with a single body, and I will there¬ 
fore state it. Col. Taylor topped his cedars at the 
height of one foot, when they were only a year old, 
and trimmed the sides perpendicularly. The English 
authors on hedging, without an exception, as far as I 
recollect, and Mr. Kirk of Delaware, who probably 
has more experience on this subject than any other 
man in the United States, all recommend the topping 
to be postponed until it can be done about four feet 
from the ground ; and the sides to be so trimmed, as 
always to keep the hedge wider at bottom than at 
top. The reasons assigned, (and they appear to me 
unanswerable,) are, that the longer "the main stem 
can be suffered to grow, the sooner will each plant 
attain the requisite strength; and that to give the 
sides a conical shape is essential to their vitality, as 
each limb requires for this purpose its due proportion 
of light, air, and moisture, which it cannot receive if 
the sides of the hedge be perpendicular. 
Now let us endeavor to show the comparative ex¬ 
pense offences made of dead wood, or stone. None 
of them have to pass through a long'non-age, requir¬ 
ing a guardianship, for they are at maturity the mo¬ 
ment they are put up. None of them require a pre¬ 
liminary ditch, although it may be advantageously 
used where materials are scarce or dear. None of 
them exclude from culture more than the very narrow 
breadth of land on which they stand; and they draw 
nothing from the adjacent soil to injure the crops, 
which may almost touch them while growing ; nay, 
they actually benefit their growth, in some degree, 
by keeping the earth near them more moist than that 
which is more distant; and the rotting, (when made 
of wood,) is really a manure, however small it may 
be. None of them are immoveable, which live hedges 
are; but maybe carried from place to place at no 
other expense than taking down and putting up. 
Again, the materials, in very extensive districts,— 
even of the old states, and nearly every where in the 
new ones,—cost nothing but the cutting, carting, and 
putting up; for they are often so much in the way of 
the proprietors, that they will actually give them to 
any one who will take them off. In all the Atlantic 
states, with the exception, perhaps, of the Carolinas, 
stone is a real nuisance over considerable portions of 
them, and must either be used in fencing or put up in 
large piles, to fit the land for profitable culture. But 
when once the stone fence is properly made, no far¬ 
ther labor on it will be necessary to the end of time. 
I have known, from my boyhood, one made of free¬ 
stone, which is less'durable than any other, used for 
fencing, and it has been standing more than fifty years, 
(how much longer I know not,) and not a minute’s la¬ 
bor, I believe, has ever been bestowed on it, during 
the whole of that period. In regard to fences made 
of timber, I can also assert from my own long experi¬ 
ence, that they will last, if made in the best manner, 
from six or seven -to twenty years, without any other 
labor than that first bestowed on them. The time 
depends, of course, upon the kind of timber used in 
their construction. If the inclosure be all above ground, 
and such as we southerner’s call a “worm-fence,” 
which you and your northern readers may not possi¬ 
bly understand, unless I tell you that it more resem¬ 
bles what our mothers and grand mothers used to 
term “ herring-bone stitch;” such fence, without vio¬ 
lence from “ breachy cattle,” or “ breachy ” men, 
(which are far worse,) will certainly last from six to 
ten years, without the slightest repairs, unless a tor¬ 
nado or whirlwind has passed over it. To insure this 
however, it must be made of some one or more of the 
varieties of timber usually preferred, and cut at the 
best season. These, in Virginia, I believe, are rank¬ 
ed in the following order: yellow locust, red cedar, 
black walnut, chesnut, sassafras, black mulberry, white 
oak, heart pine, and red oak. I may mistake in regard 
to their relative durability, but not as to the time that 
a worm-fence made of any of them will last without 
repair, if undisturbed by accident, or design. If the 
inclosure be what is commonly called “ post and rail,” 
I again assert, from my own experience, that one 
made entirely of red cedar on my farm lasted eighteen 
years, without one moment’s labor being bestowed 
upon it; and that many of the posts and rails are still 
sound, still in use, after standing thirty years, the 
fence having been taken down but once for repairs. 
The posts, when first put up, were rough, nothing 
more being done to them than to cut them of the pro¬ 
per length, and to bore them w r ith a two inch auger, 
at proper intervals for the rails. To those also, which 
were made of the bodies of small cedar, of various 
sizes, nothing more was done than to trim off the 
limbs, to cut them of the proper length, and to make 
round tenons at each end, that they might fit the holes 
in the posts. A small portion of the rails of the larg¬ 
est size were split into two pieces. Yellow locust 
posts, I know, will last longer, in general, than cedar ; 
and I have been assured, from good authority, that 
catalpa is as durable as locust. Here then we have 
three varieties of timber, two of which are common in 
many parts of our country, and the third might soon 
be made so,—of great durability, when sunk in the 
earth, even without charring; while we have several 
others that will last for many years, if charred before 
inhumation; and still more, which remain sound for 
ten, fifteen or twenty years, when used above ground. 
We may assert it then, as an incontrovertible fact, 
that fences of dead wood, if made of the most durable 
kinds of timber, common in the United States, and 
carefully put up, will last, on an average, from six or 
seven, to ten and twenty years, without expense; 
whereas some annual expense must be incured to keep 
up a live fence as long as it lives. Let those whom 
it concerns compare the cost of each, for one genera¬ 
tion or more, and determine accordingly. 
I had almost forgotten to mention stump-fences 
among those which are preferable, in certain situa¬ 
tions, to live hedges. The invention of that excellent 
implement, the stump-extractor, must soon render these 
formidable inclosures common in every part of our 
country, where much land has been recently divested 
of its timber, and of this we have some millions of 
acres. Your farming gentry who go more for the 
new-fangled,—although already hackneyed,—term, 
“ picturesque ,” than for the profitable, will utterly es¬ 
chew them, as too revolting both to sight and taste ; 
but brother Jonathan, whose preference of the useful 
to the showy, where they cannot be united, I most cor¬ 
dially approve, will cling to the stump-fences as long 
as there are materials to make them, and will leave 
the live hedges for pets to their dandy brethren; for 
(with regret be it spoken,) we have dandies in farm¬ 
ing as in every other walk of life. Not that I wish, 
by any means, to rank all hedge-makers among our 
brother dandies, for I am sure that many of them are 
actuated by the true spirit which should actuate all 
the genuine friends of husbandry; but if any should 
appear among us, as sometimes happens, who are not 
governed by this spirit, but proceed as mere fancy 
prompts them, no “ esprit du corps,” I think, should 
prevent us from attempting to guard novices against 
their influence. 
My next objection to live fences is, the number of 
fatal diseases to which all plants or trees, heretofore 
tried among us for the purpose of making them, are 
liable, except the holly. This tree is sui-generis, in 
regard to its exemption from disease, and its throw¬ 
ing out limbs, even touching the ground, which live 
and flourish quite as well as all above them. Another 
peculiarity is, that the browsing of cattle and sheep on 
the extremities of the limbs, improves it in such a man¬ 
ner, that it soon becomes quite as dense and close, as 
the best trimmed garden lot. Our worn-out old fields, 
in the tide water portion of Virginia, left uninclosed 
and abandoned to nature’s restorative influence, exhi¬ 
bit thousands of proofs of this fact, for the holly abounds 
in such grounds; and many of our poor cattle and 
sheep, left also in a great measure to the same all- 
bounteous nurse, have been instinctively led to the 
holly as a pretty good anti-starvation article. Of 
these we have also the pine and the cedar to aid the 
holly, or heaven only knows how large numbers of 
our stock would keep life' and body together during a 
considerable portion of ihe year. The objections to 
the holly are,—the extreme difficulty of making its 
berries vegetate, and its uncommonly slow growth; 
for many of our brethren seem to hold with the Irish¬ 
man, who swore that, “as posterity had never done any 
thing for him, he would never do any thing for posteri¬ 
ty” 
Although fences of this excellent hedge-plant are 
represented as common, both in England and Scot¬ 
land, by all their agricultural books, I have never 
known nor heard of but one attempt to make a holly- 
hedge in our country. This was in my own county. 
It was nearly a mile in length. Great care was be¬ 
stowed upon it, at first, by the projector; but his Vir- 
ginia-patience failed long before the hedge could have 
reached maturity. Utter neglect was the natural 
consequence, and his successor, (not his heir,) wan¬ 
tonly cut it down. A few obstinate stumps, however, 
still testify to the vitality of the holly, which nothing 
but fire or extirpation can kill, and to the reckless 
attempts of man to destroy or reject it, notwithstand¬ 
ing its admirable capacity to prove the best friend of 
all hedge-fanciers * 
The other plants or trees that I have known to be 
used for hedges, are the English hawthorn, two vari¬ 
eties of the American thorn, the Pyracantha or ever¬ 
green thorn, and the honey locust. Two experiments 
* For the information of those who plant hollies to or¬ 
nament pleasure grounds, I will here state, that we have 
several varieties in Virginia, producing, in great profu¬ 
sion, berries of various shades of scarlet, from the 
brightest and richest, to that of a paler hue. We have 
two other kinds, whose berries are of a pale orange co¬ 
lor, the one being somewhat deeper than the other. 
These however, I believe to be scarce, as I have never 
found them, except on my own farm, and one other. 
The ho.lly with variegated leaves is not a native. 
