330 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
tion, per cent., and cost of annual repair. There are sixteen 
townships or 756 square miles in the county. Estimating- 
one sixteenth as lake, ponds, or abandoned lands, gives 540 
square miles or 345,600 acres of improved or enclosed land. 
This, if fenced into forty acre lots, will require five rods of fence 
to the acre, (a careful estimate gives twenty-five acres as the 
average size of fields) or 1,728,000 rods of fence, exclusive of 
ornamental and villages fences. Estimating one eighth of this 
as division fence and therefore duplicated in the foregoing es¬ 
timate, and to include also temporary and comparatively worth¬ 
less fence, will give in even numbers 1,500,000 rods of farm 
fence for the county ; 100,000 rods for each township (one six¬ 
teenth of the total area having been thrown out of the estimate 
as lakes, ponds or abandoned lands) of improved, or enclosed 
lands. From carefully prepared data I find about two fifths to 
be highway fence, making 6(>0,000 rods of highway fence for 
the county, and 40,000 for each township. 
Estimating the cost of this fence at one dollar per rod gives 
$1,500,000 for the county, and $100,000 for each township. 
Two-fifths of this for highway fences, gives $600,000 for 
the county, and $40,000 for each township—or a total cost 
of all farm fences of $4.34, nearly, per acre, and a cost of 
$1.73 per acre, for highway fence. Estimating ten percent, 
on first cost for annual deterioration and repairs, and seven per 
cent, interest on first cost, gives $275,000 as the aggre¬ 
gate annual cost of farm fence for the county, and $18,333.33 
for each township. Fully two-fifths of this is for highway 
fence. If to this sum be added the cost of village fences— 
mainly made necessary by the pernicious habit of using the 
highway as a public pasture — the total cost of fence for the 
county will be swelled to the considerable sum of $1,750,000, 
and the annual cost to the very respectable figure of $297,- 
500. That a very considerable per cent, of this aggregate can, 
and ought to be saved by discontinuing the use of the high¬ 
way as a public pasture, at least nine-tenths of farmers will 
admit. But such is the force of habit, and the fear of giving 
offence, that but very few farmers in the State are willing to 
