The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1871-11-25
The Cost Of Fences.

The Cost Of Fences.
Somebody writing in the Agricultu-
raj Report, for 1854, says:
The fences of the United States have
cost more money than the houses, cities
included more than the ships, boats,
vessels of all descriptions, on all oceans,
lakes and rivers more than our manu-
factories, of all kinds, with their ma
chinery; more than any class of prop
erty, aside from real estate, except, it
may be, the railroads of our country
This INDY be like an exaggerated state
ment, but a little estimate will show
| that it is not as extravagant as would
first appear.
The first cost of fences of New York
State was between 500, 100000 and
$144 200, 600. Assuming this to be ap-
proximately correct, and estimating the
first cost of the fences of other States
on the same basis, we have, as the
total first cost of the fences of the
whole country, the vast sum of ST.
295, OOO, 600.
This requires to be renewed once in
ten years, giving $4,000, 900 as the
actual cost, to which should be added,
however, at least half as much (more
repairs,) making the aggregate sum of
1874, 400, 900 as the annual national ex-
pense-a sum we believe below the
actual figures, yet quite beyond COM
prehension. James T. Worthington,
of Ohio, says that there are Is, 900, 600
acres of land in Ohio, inclosed within
AZ, 600 miles of fences, at a prime cost
of $115, 1000 900, and a yearly expense
fN>, nS,,e, o<n If GQ0
If roadside and boundary fences
can be dispensed with, half the cost
Of fencing will be saved. That cost is
now an annual tax of 81 so on every
acre of improved land in the United
States-the fence tax being twice or
thrice as great as the aggregate of
the State and local taxes combined.
Why can not large portion of this |
outlay be saved for some profitable in !
vestment? Every dollar rescrued from |
fences may added to productive wealth.
Fences are dead capital; they pay no |
interest and are constant drain upon
the pocket. AS Mr.. Greedy says: awe
poison our land with fences; they are a
shelter for weeds, as well as vast and
useless expense. Tho indirect cost
which they inflict is almost as great
of the direct. A Virginia zigzag fence
inclosed, thus imposing a five per cent.
tax on the market value of the soil
a tax which would be felt to be oppres-
sive if it was for the payment Of the
debt instead of for the shelter
of a growth of weeds"
Shall we fence stock out or in?
There is no doubt that our people now
expend four times as much money to
fence stock out as would be required to
fence it in. Our present custom, which
universal fencing, is the worst
the practical American people
ever made. Enterprising and original
in many matters, they are here follow
ing slavishly, generation after genera
ton, the habit of the earliest English
it, though very ex-
oensive and inconvenient, because it
8 the good old way. Europe has learn
lines more fences in Illinois than in
Germany; and Dutchess county in
New York has more than all France.
n France, Germany and Holland, far
ners hold their lands in common, with
My narrow paths between them.
The immense cost of sustaining fen
es the Inconvenience of having them
lways in the way of through tillage,
nd of easy egress and ingress to the
the impossible snow-drifts
by them the shelter they
ford to weeds and briars the protec-
ion they afford to many of the worst
nimals pests of the farm, and their I'M
lightly appearance generally through
ut the country, as the recepticle of l
tone-heaps, piles of brush and dead
caves and to say nothing of the count
ess acres rendered worse than useless
y their occupancy, would seem suffi-
lent reasons for disposing of fences
where not indispensable for purposes
f pasturing.