PRACTICAL PAPERS—FARM FENCE. 
329 
FARM FENCE. 
13Y DAVID WILLIAMS, DARIEN. 
To farmers, this is a subject that challenges their attention 
nearly every day in the year, and assumes a rapidly increasing 
importance as the available material for fencing diminishes. 
The first supply (rails) is mainly exhausted, save such as may 
be left from the ravages of time. All the timber left of the 
original forests is required for fuel, except a small portion 
reserved for posts. A few groves of poplar are being preserved 
which, if properly treated, will make valuable fencing. In fully 
one-half of the improved portion of the state the old time- 
honored rail has passed out of the catalogue of fencing mate¬ 
rial, so far as new fences are in question. The climate seems 
to forbid farmers to hope for live fences. The attempts in this 
direction have, so far as I have observed, proved a failure in 
all parts of this state, and will probably continue to prove fail¬ 
ures if attempted with any material that has been tried thus far. 
That some hardy shrub valuable for fencing may yet be found 
is to be hoped for, more than expected. At present, farmers 
in fully one-half of the improved portions of the state are re¬ 
stricted to posts and boards for all farm fences; and not only 
the cost of this material, but its quality, its rapid deteriora¬ 
tion, the diminishing supply, and the somewhat feeble charac¬ 
ter of its resisting power to the assaults of farm stock, present 
questions of very considerable importance for study and ex¬ 
periment. 
The actual, aggregate cost of farm fence to the farmers of this 
state so very far exceeds any estimate likely to be made, except 
from careful computation, that I have with the assistance of a 
number of well informed farmers of this county (Walworth) 
made a careful computation of the first cost, annual deteriora 
