The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1870-02-12
Don and Stock LOaU.
CoCKEYsvILLE, BALTIMORE COUNTY,
February 9Th. 1870.

| county TO know, enclose some eXtractS TAKEN
| from the reports of the Agricultural Depart
ment at Washington, relating to dog laws and
| their effect upon the wool growing interests OF
| the United States and Great Britain.
Just now the citizens of this locality are be-
ginning to bestir themselves with the hope OF
getting through the Legislature, at the present
| session, some suitable laws for preventing both
| dogs and stock from running at large in Balti
| more county. Several public meetings have
been held at this place about them. A com
mittee has been appointed to collect informa-
| ton and report to an adjourned meeting on
| future day and because these extracts were
copied to be read at one of said meetings and
were overlooked, have thought it might ava
ken an interest in the subject and help on the
| cause little, if could persuade you to give
them circulation in advance OF the meeting.
| Does it not strike you as strange that, with
all the advantages of climate, soil and good
| markets, possessed by our people, over, perhaps
| any other in the country, the Maryland law
makers have never thought it worth while to
| give to this branch of husbandry the encourage
ment of protecting acts of Assembly Except
for the two counties of Hartford and Cecil, where
| the dog owner is made to pay small tax for
the privilege of keeping such a nuisance about
him, and where the grOwths of wool and NUT
| ton are said to pay small profit to the farmer
| the Code is perfectly silent on the subject of
| protection in any form.
Such, indeed, has been the Indifference shown
| by our public men about affording encourage
ment to this branch of industry in the State,
| that, even in these two cases were it not, as |
am informed, the tax falls perquisite to the
Collector, for his trouble, it would not be col
| lected at all and would not therefore have the
effect intended 1t is not exactly true that "tn
| give dog bad name is equivalent to giving
| him load of buckshot." We are all such low
ers OF good neighborship that, rather than kill
| a suspected cur although his skeleton appear
| ance may offer the strongest evidence of his
| guilt, we wait till head after head, and, not un
| frequently, score after score of our flocks are
| lost to ns,-and, even them he must be caught
| in the act before anything is done to put stop
| to the havoc. Surely there ought to be found
somewhere in the laws of other States where
| this important interest is said to flourish, an
example of one sufficiently stringent to abate
| this evil in our midst and, at the same time,
to preserve the good feeling between neighbors
which is now SO apt to be impaired.
/ have said the good people hereabouts were
moving in this matter with a will. believe
| that when the committee alluded to shall find
it convenient to report, they will present such
an array of facts for the consideration of the
public as to point Enthusiastically to the neces.
| sity of the most perfect law for relief. friend
| of mine mentioned to me yesterday what he
| considered singular coincidence IN connec
| ton with this movement. He said that stimuli
| taneous with the earliest notice of it in the
| public prints, there appeared also a notice of
| two deaths from hydrophobia in the county.
| Nav not this augur favorably for its success
| Or shall we have to wait till the sheep are all
| driven from the fields and the nerves of the in
| habtants are shattered by the constant dread
of contact with these rabid pets Rather let us
declare war ON them at once and make it, like
| the war against the "Herasy of Secession" one
| of determination
| But my dear friends, the pests ofthe day are
not confined to the vagrant ours. The whole
| country is filled with droves of cows and pigs,
| yuh Ia SubSISt
be found on the road sides, go about poking
| their heads through every open gate and root
| ing and destroying crops their owners have no
more legal right to than the imam in the moon"
| has. Here then is fault in system crying
j.! quite as loud for remedy as the former one.
| am we'll aware that it is time -horored priv
| lege of the poor man of family in county
| to be able to pasture his cows and hogs ON the
| public roads, even though they do, occasional
| ly, break down fence and steal bite from
| the adjoining grounds. 1t has its origin in the
| early settlement of the State, when the prepa
| ration of the material for enclosing the lands
was of more value than the lands themselves,
| and when, to have restricted the use to be made
| of them, by pasture, to the enclosed parts,
! would have retarded the progress of settlement,
and caused the labor required to support fam
| ilY to be more instead of less. Did this privi
| lege carry with it any right of property or les
sen in the least the labors of the poor man in
| providing for the wants of his family, there
| might be some excuse for tolerating it longer
| but, the fact is, by creating necessity for
| greater amount of labor and capital to be en-
| ployed in carrying on the operations of the
| farm, which is the great source of all that en-
ters into the support of life and adds wealth to
| the State, the business is crippled in proper
| ton as the means employed are diverted from
| their legitimate But are we never to lave
| done with custom which, however beneficial
to few at the time of its adoption, is now Diet
Z ~, IN ha nrn W M al
| the lands arc all taken up; the roads to market
pen in every direction tho material for
/ fencing them, instead of being worth as former
ly, the mere cost of cutting it, is now the price
| Of ship timber, and everything necessary to a
successful prosecution of the business of farm
ing is at hand except capital-of course, mean
| capital in its reproductive sense, and not sim
ply in land, which requires the entire value of
| the products raised on it to keep up the fences.
| The fences, which mar so much the beauty of
| the country and the purpose of nurseries
for briars, produce not one farthing's benefit to
ANYBODY, and are Just so much taken from the
| resources of the owner with which to prove
| the productiveness of his farm. To give some
idea of this loss of capital in fences, permit me
| to call your attention to the value of the road
fences alone in Baltimore county.
The roads have been repeatedly estimated as
| $500 miles in length, every mile of road, ofne
cessity, has two miles of fence along it, and g.
! 50Ox2 or 5,000x5,2S0 Che length of a mile in
feet q, 4000 900 represents the length of road in
| feet over the whole county Now, il we take 10
feet as the average length of a panel Of fence
and put its value down at $1.25, by 26, 400, 900
xSl % we shall have the sum of 81 300 900, rep
resenting the cost value of the road fences over
! the same. 1t is known too that if the farmer
| had his own stockto fence against-as the com
| mon law directs-he would shift his pasture
| field fences as he shifts his crops in rotation,
| and thus avoid having to keep up more than
| opa iOo1ocura Mt Time I hava not quf ipinnt
| data for getting at the probable amount of this
second class of fences-the rotation of crops, as
| the measure of the number of fields on the
| farm, being different in several parts of the
| county-but deem it liberal enough for our
purpose, if we put them down for an equal val
ue with the road fences and then, the account
stands $6,600,O00 charged to the whole as an
unproductive investment which neither adds
one straw to the hay crop nor enables the Ia
boring man to increase the sugar in his coffee
one grain.
saw proper, by special acts, to encourage the
| investment of this large capital in the debt of
| the country, the interest accruing from half of
| it would pay every poor man of family a
| George Jenkins HAM," once a week, the year
round, and furnish him with the best of milk
| and butter free of cost, at his own door and
the proceeds from the other half send all his
| children to the best institutions of learning in
| the State
We have every advantage of climate and soil
for the production of the necessaries of life in
the greatest abundance and uheapness we
have also a choice of the best markets of the
country for the sale of agricultural products
but when it is considered how strong is the
competition between our people and those of
other places, brought about by the facilities at
forded by steam carriage, for supplying those
markets. the fear is, unless we avail ourselves
of all the aids to industry in our reach-ot cap
| ital, economy of labor, and judicious applica
ton of manures to the soil.-that the farmers
of the county will be found seeking other EN-
Payments of less agreeable but more profta
Bile kind. In short unless we take the "bull by
the horns and ignore the incorrigible, long
nosei, slab-sided landpikes, so called pigs,
which must be shut up anyhow, | fear that
some of us may soon have to "root TT too.
/ 20 in therefore for law to prevent dogs
and stock, both, from running at large in Bal
timore county, and making it the duty of the
public authorities to see that it is enforced |
without respect to persons. PROGRESS.
The following are the extracts alluded to
above
From Patent Office Report for 1862, page 27O:
The statistics of Ohio for 1858 show loss of !
$lO9,66l in sheep killed aud $S1,O97 in sheep |
Injured by dogs aggregate of $l46,75Sj other |
years have shown lighter losses. Last year |
the loss was heavy again. Taking the average |
for Ohio, and calculating upon the census |
turns of 1860, the entire loss to the United |
States would be nearly 900 per annum |
This loss having had its influence in withdraw
ing capital from wool craving is exciting at |