Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1883-02-21
Fence or Fence.

bers Of the Georgia General Assembly
D. Wyatt Aiken says:
| think it reasonable to say that
one-twelith OF the time of the labor
ers on our farms is consumed in
building and repairing fences. There
must be over 100000 such men in
South Carolina. Value their services
at the low figure Of 50 per month, and
there is a direct tax of a half million
dollars annually; and, | may appro-
priately ask, cui bono? Employ this
labor in making manure, plOwing
under green crops, or otherwise in
improving our farms, and who can
estimate the material benefit it would
be to the State? In my opinion they
had better be idle consumers than
extravagant employees.
In the next place, the continued
and increasing disposition of our
farmers to denude our most fertile
lands Of the magnificent covering
which nature gave them is annually
and with increasing certainty sending
millions OF money to the sea in the
shape of soluble fertilization. Our
already open lands are capable of pro
ducing two-fOld heavier crops than we
grow, if properly managed. Enlarg-
ing this area does not increase our
crops, but simply lays bare that much
more OF the surface to be baked by
the sun, while the scariiyiUg process
goes on to impoverish the fresh lands.
| believe, and no one can refute it,
that this exposing to the heat OF our
long summers so much Of our surface
soil, causing an undue evaporation OF
moisture, is the prime cause of the
deleteriOus drOughts from which we
now suffer annually.
But again, what is the chief re.
quirOment of the existing fence laws?
1t is that we shall protect our growing
crops against the depredations Of
rambling stock. The annual agricul-
tural products Of South Carolina are
perhaps worth $30,000,000. What is
the stock worth against which we
have principally to fence cattle,
sheep and hogs2 They are generally
a disgrace to the State. Two.thirds
of the intruders in Abbeville county
are worth little more than their
hides, and have no reason to believe
that they are inferior to those of the
other counties Of the State. And as
worthless as they are, they are made
still more worthless by the methods
of torture resorted to to prevent their
jumping Who has not seen,
time aud time again, q poor COW
with her horns tied to her
forefOot with chain, perhaps
three feet long, to prevent her Jump.
ing, and before she had spent twenty
four hours in this painful position both
her ankle and forehead will have be
come chafed and swollen? Or
scrawny pig with a hickory witbe
around his neck to prevent bis crawl
ing through the fence where the
cracks were not three inches wide?
Yes, | ONCE saw a herd of goats that
had the front foot Of each one Of them
deliberately chopped of "to prevent
their Jumping into the cotton patch.
Why, prevention of cruelty to dumb
brutes demands that we should change
our existing fence laws.
The experience of some of you is an
argumentin in favor of a change vastly
more potent than | can adduce. An
derson and York counties both have
the existing laws reversed, and what
is the consequence? II none other,
this one is sufficient, that the people
are delighted with the change.
! have frequently met men
from the few counties In the
State where stock are fenced, and
not the crops, who have told me they
were greatly opposed to the change at
first, but they would not now have it
otherwise: Is this not sufficient? If
it is profitable for the farmorg Of AI-
dorson, York, Ckestes ahd'FairGeld to
enclose theft stock rather than their
crops, it will be equally SO to adopt
this same policy in every county in the
State.
! know that Ia Ogp mountain coun
tie5 and In the seac6ast COUNTIES farm.
ers will contend otherwise; but their
experience is defense of only one
side of the question. Not one in a
hundred Of chem Knows how small an
area OF enclosed land will sustain s
COW or hog during those months in the
year in which they do not have to be
fed. And my conviction is that there
is not a landowner in the State but
that would 6ud /; bo,h more econom~
ioai ana more profitable to prepare
pastures and enclose his stock than it
Is to allow them to rambla iaf and
near in search Of food, it @attefs not
bow lpEsTlant tReiT range may be,