The native Virginian. [volume] (Orange Court House, Va.) 1867-187?, 1868-11-06
garut att6 Gar6en.
FENCES.

The only country in Europe, we be-
lieve, i'm which the landed proprietofigT
saddled with the enormous expense of
enclosures to protect himself from tres!
pass is England; and there the hedge
has been TO a great extent substituted
for that other costly nuisance, the fence,
in the enclosure offarm;, and their SUBJ
divisions into fields. We have Inherit
ed the pernicious system from our Brit~
ish ancestry, and in early times when
the country was partially and thinly
settled, when timber was not only
valueless, but an encumbrance to be
gotten rid OF l'y the most expeditions
means, there was some reason for its
liberation; but now the case is far dit
ferent. When we come to consider that
the cost of building and repairing the
fences of the United States is enormous,
almost beyond computation, it becomes
matter for surprise that the agricultural
community does not seek, by total or
even partial abolition of the system, to
rid itself forever ofa burden far more
onerous than the federal taxation to
meet the annual interest on our billions
of national debt.
The late Nicholas Biddle, IN ore of
his able agricultural addresses, deliver
ed some thirty year ago, estimated the
cost OF the fencing tor the State of Penn
sylvania alone at 100000 900; and the
annual cost ofrepqirS at SIC, ,000, 600! An
able writer on National Wealth., says:
"Strange as it may seem, the grcltest
investment in this country, the most
costly product OF human industry, is the
common fences which enclose and di-
vide the fields. No man dreams, that
when compared to that outlay on these
unpretrndlng monuments ofhuman art,
our cities and our towns with all their
wealth, are left far behind; IN many
places the fences have cost more than
the fences and farms are worth. 1t is
the enormous burden which keeps down
the agricultural interest of this country,
causing an untold expenditure, beside
the loss Of the land the fences occupy.
We heard the late Charles Calvert, of
Prince George Coun y, Maryland.
man who, notwithstanding his heredi-
tary wealth, was eminently practical,
estimate the annual tax for fencing on
farm of one hundred and fifty acres,
properly enclosed and subdivided, with
post and rail of chesnut, at $3.50. In
colonial times, in the older States, tim
Der was an encumbrance, taxing the i'll
genuity and industry of the farmer for
Its removal; now the reverse is the case,
it is daily getting more scarce and valu-
able, and the period is not far distant
when. as now in France, (once the best
timbersd country in EurOpe,l we will
be compelled to buy it by the pound for
domestic purposes. True, in many
parts of the country the hedge is being
substituted for the more expensive
fence, but that is mere palliative, the
substitution of lesser for a greater evil.
Beautiful as the hedges are in England,
the public voice is being raised against
them there, because Of the enormous
amount of land required for their SUP
port. Each hedge is five or six feet
wide at its base; and it will exhaust the
land on either side to the extent of full
ly five feet. Where the divisions and
subdivisions of an estate are as numer-
ous as judicious rotation of crops Will
frequently require, the abstraction of
arabic land amounts to serious aggreS
gate.
Now, that the agriculture of eleven
States of this Government is in state
of transition, and the fencing in many
of them has either gone to decay or
been burned mp by cOntending armies,
this would seem to be an Opportune mo-
ment to make a radical change in their
fence law, and TO rid themselves with
out any great shock of what is evident
great and unnecessary burden-IMf,
Field and Farm.