Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1881-04-14
Of the State should affect all citizens

equally, and not impose burdens on
one class, liberating Others from sii,ni
lar burdens, when their property is
equally benefited and protected. If
you have cleared land, and are work
ing it, you are compelled to fence it,
and tence it high. You cannot stop
with fence that would keep,weilfed
( cattle in, but you must fence half
starved cattle out. &
Suppose the land you till should all
lie in squares, SO as to take the least
possible amoun: of fencings~and you
fence in a ten acre lot; this requires
one half mile of fencing; if it be q.
forty acre lot it will require one mile
oflfencing; if one hundred and sixty
acres, two miles: if six hundred and
forty, four miles. The cost of split,
ting rails here is about forty cents per
hundred, and this will make your
fence cost you forty dollars per mile,
not counting your timber as worth
anything; then to haul and erect the
same will cost from twenty to forty
dollars per nile Ga addition to the
splitting of the rails), owing to the
distance the rails have to be hauled.
Placing the estimate at the lowest
rate. We have sixty dollars per mile;
or thirty dollars for each ten--,ssoorooss
felcssal:s7tsiH tsiHlatis g Say, three dollars
per acre. Each year the fence must
be repaired. I now refer to a lssaF
fence. In building fences five feet:
high, they are more easily pushed or
blown over. This is constant item
of expense. Your neighbor, whose
lands are assessed lower, but who asks
just as much per acre for his land as
you do, is not compelled to fence his
untitled land at all,
A renter on the lands OF Mr.. a.
farms ten acres with q steers He.yill
keep two or three head Of cattle, and
not leas than six or eight hogs. He
pastures out. His halfstarved stock
break in on you ! 81 all 'he year, but par
ticnlarly after his " crop is laid by,
his stock begins in earnest to lay yours.
by. If your fence at any rointaround
your enclosure (perhaps fenee three
or four miles long, often ten) is found
to be less than sixty inches high, you
have not lawful fence, and if your
crop is destroyed you cannot recover
one cent in damages; if his half-starv-
ed stock gorge themselves and die:
he can recover damages fromiyou. ~
| If A. buys land, pays forit, pays
his taxes on it, all are agreed that it
is his. The State says by legal en-
actments. post your land, Mr.. a.
Trespass is wrong. The State does
not pretend to make ita wrong be-
cause of its enactments, ,buttwe enact
Il
for your protection laws, SO that when
the wrong Is done the offender can
be punished, and we limit the amount
of fine or punishment. No man, If
you object, has even the right to walk
over your lands,7 but you must fence
| against bis stock full FIVE feet. No
man can fence against "slip,gaps,"
and it's hard to fence. against the
"yest-pocket" series of ags that We
have here. The State Aurther pro-
vides that if man enters upon your
lands ana cuts down any tree growing
thereon, it is trespass, misdemean-
or; if he remove the timber so cut,
he is guilty OF larceny, The two acts
lust referred to show that the State
comedies that the land Of each indi-
vidual owner must be protected, and
yet the present fence law leads not to
protection, but to ravages. If it IS
illegal for me to enter upon your
premises and cut growing timber, is
it nvt.equally illegal for me to cut
and remove grasses found growing
thereon? Will not the constant pill
fering of the forage tat rightfully
belongs to you impoverish your lands,
making you poorer? II SO, is it right,
morally or legally? Can a law be bee
Just or constitutional that imposes
burdens on one citizen and relieves
another? Does legal enactment
that gives you the legal right under.
that law the privilege to destroy my
lands by running horde Of stock I on
them year after year, make it right
or just, or is it honorable for youto
do SO? If you have no right TO tres
pass on my lands, how is ityour stock
has? If you have noright to cut and
appropriate my timber, how is it you
have the right to appropriate my pas
lures? If it be trespass, misde
meanor, or larceny in one case, how
is it that it is not in the other? %
No man has tie right tc ,ieep. or
make a a-nuisance. No Senekhas the
right to keep stock that are q nui-
sance to his neighbor.. No man has
the right TO keep stock that he does
not provide for. No man has any
right TO expect his neighbor TO fur