Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1877-05-03
The farm and :fiteside.
FENCE OR NO FENCE.

Un NJ ELNCEs
Whether we should enclose our crops and
"turn out" the remainder of our farms, or fence
up the pasture and leave the cultivated por-
tions unprotected by any kind of fence save
the law of the land, are questions that have
now and then agtated the minds of the peo-
pie of every one of the States of this union.
Firm adherents can be found to both sides OF
the question. We confess to having never be-
come clearly settled in our opinion upon this
subject.
When we see our noble forests felled annu-
ally by the thousands of acres to procure fresh
land to cultivate; after we have, by most
slovenly system, CALLED and impoverished as
many more fertile acres when we know that
far more economy could be practiced upon
the farm by avoiding the necessity of having
80 many thousands of rails mauled every win
ter; when we know that almost every farm
house burns as much wood in each fireplace
as ought to supply dwelling, and kitchen, and
washhouse, during the cold season; when we
know that strip of land ten feet wide run
ming around every side of the field, and this
frequently the best land in the field, is lost to
cultivation because ofthe fence; when we show
that every negro in the South will have COW,
and never thinks he Isl freeman until be can
tie his own cows horn to her fore foot to keep
her from jumping the fence that he won't Tx
up when we think of the thousands of dollars
that are lost to the intrinsic wealth of the coun-
try by the mauling and hauling and building
and repairing that is necessary to keep up
the fences around our farms; when we think OF
the provocation to say hard words when fox
hunters, tramps, jumping cattle or other null
sances make gaps in our fences, and cannot be
punished for it; when we think how easy it
would be to make fat COW out of a poor one,
a profitable COW out of an expensive one, if the
owner was simply compelled to keep it up,
take care of it, feed it treat it, as the returns
would prove it should be treated; when we
think it is the crop that brings in the money
and enriches the country, and not the forests
or pasture lands, and are therefore the more
worthy of lawful protection on that account =;
when we think how much better one good cow
is than a herd of poor ones; when we think
how easy it is to herd cattle and sheep and
even hogs together, so that they will need but
the care of a single person few hours each
day to prevent their strolling out of sight /;
when we think what pleasure it is, what
real luxury to sit and watch improved herds
and Aocks pasturing and grazing over luxurl-
ant meadows and fields we say when we think
of all these things, we can but wonder leglsla-
ton has not long since required our farmers
to set about improving their stock by abolish
ing the existing fence law and allowing our
broad acres to be cultivated without the miles
and miles of hideous worm fences everywhere
seen.
But then, when we have looked at the other
side of this question, and thought how ignor-
ant most of our people are, even of the old
established law upon this subject, and how
sparsely settled our country is, and how much
easier it is to enclose the cultivated fields than
it would be to enclose all the remainder of the
majority of Southern farms, and how every
farmer would think he was bound to fence
in all the balance of his lands if he were per-
mitted to throw out his fields, and what small
proportion of the laboring classes throughout
the South are landowners, (even though every
one that can owns cow and how that class
are opposed to stock law, because they think
that all the unenclosed pasture lands are, by
a natural right, as free to their COWS as to the
owner of the pasture, and Of what minor i'm
portance to our farmers the care of stock is
when compared to the infatuation they have
for the "cottou-patch," and what wonderful
social and industrial revolution it would make
to establish stock law and abolish our fences,
we have halted between two opinions. Much
can be said on both sides of this question, and
more on the other, look at it as you will.
Absence of fences is an evidence of progress
i've farming. When we 60 into city, town
or village, (and there are some of these last in
the United States) where the roses grow, as it
we're, "out-doors," and the vegetable gardens
are not enclosed, we at once know there is an
ordinance there preventing stock going at
large, and with this idea is also Immediately
coupled the thought that the cows there are
carefully housed and well fed, and, in conse-
quence, the people have plenty of milk.
But if we see village with its streets and
pavements filthy, and the lots all enclosed, or
even farm with high "staked and ridered"
fences, we are not long in coming to the con-
clusion that idlers and depredators, four-foot-
ed and horned, are round about.
We once heard a man say traveller could
20 alone from northern Missouri into Iowa
and tell, without being informed, when he en-
tered the latter State, because all the farming
evidences were so much more progressive and
thrifty and he attributed it all to the fact
that the stock were enclosed in Iowa and the
crops were not; whilst in Missouri the reverse
was the case We have been told, too, that
in North Carolina, where the option was given
to counties to vote "fence or no fence" wher-
ever "no fence" prevailed the people have be-
come reconcled to it, farms have been i'm
proved, cattle have increased in number and
value, and the farmers would not, if they
could, return to the "old rut." Wehave also
heard grumblers at several places where we
have seen the no-fence law in force, but we
did not regard their complaints because the
thing seemed chronic, and we all know there
are some men who would suffer torture if they
had no opportunity to grumble.
Fences are by no means universal through
out the Union. Several of the Northwestern
States require owners to enclose their stock.
In portions of North Carolina, Virginia and
one or two northeastern States, the same law
prevails. In one or two Of the southwestern
States the effort has been made, but without
success, to abolish fences.
In Europe land is too valuable to be appro
priated to fences. In England hedges super.
seded fences, and now hedges are considered
Objectionable because their roots monopolize
too much land. Throughout France and
northern Italy, and central and northern Eu.
rope, fences are almost unknown. Often the
divisions of land do not appear at all. Wire
fences we're even abolished, and the only land
marks are stone posts at the corners of the
land to designate its outlines. :, -,
This question of "Fence or no Fence" will,
=. Ill IL. l;l;tu nonna hofnro tho anislatnrp