The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-01-14
The FENCE QUESTION.

bound TO fence at all against my neigh
bors stock :! In all our States, especi-
ally in all our Western States. the most
intelligent farmers are earnestly debat-
ing the question: F." Cannot highway and
farm boundary fences be dispensed /
with p 1t is vital to every community,
and an affirmative decision would effect |
complete revolution in the methods I
now universally practiced. Let us look
briefly into the merits of the case as it
stands:
..sr THE COST OF OUR FENCES.
Since the discussion has thrown light /
upon the facts involved, farmers have |
been amazed to discover that their fences I
cost more than all their other land ex-
penses, taxes included. The first cost |
of fences now in New York State is es-
timated to have cost SI40,00O,OO Gen
eral Worthington, of Ohio, SAYS that |
there are 100000 acres of land in that /
State, Enclosed with 5000 miles of |
fence, at first cost of SII5,000,O00, and |
yearly expense for repairs of $780, |
090. Nicholas Biddle, an authority in |
finances, estimated that in his time the |
annual fence tax of Pennsylvania was |
$l0,000,O00. Assuming these figures to |
be approximately correct, and adding |
estimates for other States on the same !
basis, we have as the total first cost of |
the fences of the whole country the |
enormous sum of 81, 296, 100000.
This requires to be renewed once in |
ten years, say-givlng $l29,60O,OOO as
the annual cost, to which should be ad- |
ded half as much more for repairs, max |
ing the aggregate of SI94, 10000 as the !
annual national expense. Weneed not
add any interest, for the sum is already
quite beyond comprehension.
If roadside and boundary fences can |
be dispensed with, half the cost of fenc-
ing will be saved. This is now an an
nual tax of Sl.50 on every acre of i'm
proved land in the United States-a tax
that would be deemed oppressive if it
were for the payment of the national
debt. Every dollar rescued from fences
may be added to productive wealth.
Fences are the deadest of dead capital
i'll comparison, paying for a defunct
horse is a cheerful investment. Money
may as well be buried in the ground or
cast into the sea as to be put into any
fence that is not Indispensable. Yes,
better; for the sunken treasure, like the
dead horse, costs no more forever, while
the useless fence covers an acre of land
every mile it travels, and is perpetual
drain on the pocket. Now, what fences
are necessary?
SHALL WE FENCE STOCK OUT OR IN?
Europe has learned a more rational
method than to build roadside and
boundary fences. There are five times
as many fences in Illinois as there are in
Germany and Duchess county, n. Y,
has more than all France. New Eng
land has fifty times as many as old Eng
land. In France, Germany and Hol-
land, farmers generally hold their lands
i'll common, with only narrow paths
between.
1t cannot be difficult to demonstrate
the gross injustice of the present sys-
tenn. johnson owns a farm on which he
grows wheat-but he keeps no cattle.
Jones owns an adjacent farm, devoted
to stock raising-but he has no wheat.
johnson needs no fences for his own use
his wheat will not go of his lands to
prey upon his neighbours hogs and cat
tie. Since Ceres, i'll benign mood, de-
livered to Triptolemus the first grains of
wheat, that crop has always staid where
it was put. Jones needs fences-cannot
live without them-for he owns locOmo-
tive property. Now, to compel John
son to build fences which he has no use
for, and to excuse Jones from building
fences which he cannot get along with
out, is the very reverse of equity.
To compel johnson to fence against
Jones' cattle is morally and socially
wrong. Itinverts the responsibility. It
ignores the relation of things. 1t vir-
tually takes property from johnson to
build Jones' fences; and this is opposed
| to the fundamental principles of law it
self, which Blackstone says is ga rule of
| society, authorizing what is right and
forbidding what is wrong"
Corn, cereals, fruit trees, vegetables,
are not capable of trespass; they have
neither legs nor horns, neither grinders
nor graniverous appetite. Shall we
continue to put the onus and cost of
fencing on the man whose property, an
chored to the soil, stays where it is put
and cannot get away ?-or on the man
whose property is hungry, destructive.
saltatory, marauding? In such state
of things, is there any question where
justice lies?
A writer in the Illinois Agricultural
Report asks: as there any good reason
why man should be compelled to build
from one to ten miles of fence to pro-
tect his crops from his neighbours stock,
when such neighbors might themselves
do 1t with one-tenth the fence? Can
any man give a good reason why the
law should be that man shall stand
guard over his one hundred and sixty
acres of grain, rather than his neighbor
over his one COW? Does it. or does it
not, seem right that every man shall take |
care of his own stock? My idea is that
every man shall take care of his own
stock and, as a corollary. that he shall
be compelled to make only so much or
so little fence as is necessary to do that
thing"
THE LAW OF FENCING.
In harmony with BIackstone's defini-
ton, we do not find the law relating to |
fences commanding what is flagrantly |
unjust for the common law does not re- |
quire any man to fence against stock. |
Its spirit is, when cows and corn come |
into forbidden contact, to consider the |
cows the trespassers, and not the corn
10 make every owner responsible for its
depredations.
Highscdy Fences.-The land occupied |
by highway is, in most of our States, |
still private property, belonging to the |
owners of the adjacent fields. The |
public cannot take private property |
without compensation SO, in opening a |
highway, they acquire no right, except |
the right to make road and travel it. |
The owner of the farm through which |
it runs reserves all rights not incompati- |
BILE with the public right of way, and |
can maintain trespass for carting off
timber or stone, or for pasturing cattle |
along such road. In most ofthe States, |
also, he can maintain trespass and COL |
lect damages for cattle entering his field |
from the road without being required to /
show that it was fenced at all. Cattle |
have right of passage along the high
way but they have no right to Ioiter IN
it, or to be in it at all without keeper.
A few of the States have enacted laws
which virtually authorize Jones's COW
to enter Johnson's garden and destroy
his vegetables. unless ohnson shall have
erected q fertilization keep her out this
taking one mans property and transfer
ring it TO another is opposed to the fun
damental principle of law. The law
protects property-cattle and hogs on
the highway are pirates. 1t is high time
for the prominent farmers of every
country to combine, in compelling Gus
tom to conform to the common law.
Farm boundary Fences.-Most of the
States have enacted laws that seem OPP
pressive, requiring division fences be-
tween farms, and violating, with aggra-
yating circumstances, the rule of right
that the man whose property needs re-
straining should fence it in. Such law
declares the whole State that is not for /
titled, to a common; and, however the
arrangement might have answered the
needs of early colonial times, it cannot