The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1884-09-27

The Old Rail Fence.-The placing of barbed
wire fences around farms, usurping the place of
the old rail fence, destroys half Of the pleasure of
farming. There is something about the old rail
fence that is real comfortable and the barbed wire
fence is forbidding cold, repulsive. Until you
come to think of it, there does not seem though
there was great deal of solid comfort in a rail
fence, but there is. Did you see two old
farmers leaning against rail fence, whiting,
and talking politics horse trade for hours to-
gether? They are more comfortable and rest more
than they would if they occupying the softest
sofa or the best stuffed arm chair in the world
There are so many shapes man can get into, to
rest, about rail fence First the farmer will fold
his arms and rest them on the top rail, and lean
his brest on the fence and talk tor half an hour,
until his legs tired then he will step one foot
up on the second rail from the bottom, and stand
and whittle for half an hour until the top of the
rail is as polished as a piece of mahogany. Then
he win change feet and lean one elbow on the
second rail from the top, and sharpen his knife
on his boot, and talk for half an hour about how
he is going to pay the mortgage on his farm next
year. After that position becomes irksome he
will turn his back to the fence stand on his heels,
and place his two elbows on the top rail, and lean
against the fence, and for half hour he will tell
about how the old mare that he is trying to trade
off cleaned out all the teams on the road coming
back from the circus at town, and how, if he
wasn't fixed just as he is, and wanted the twenty
dollars boot money to send John off to the select
school, there is earth that could buy
that mare. Then he will get tired and stand
around sideways, put his left arm up on the fence
and begin to white again, and swear how the
patent right men are skinning US farmers out of
our eye-teeth. Without going into details as to
ss.s-1s, -suer COMP inatOns Wy ssIiIou II rafnIer
rest on, about against rail fence, it may
not be out of place to speak of sitting on top of
fence. The farmers, after trying several posi-
tiOns, will instinctively climb up the fence and
rest the top rail- their feet resting on the third
rail from the top, which is always laid with pro-
lection enough to make good footing, and an hour
will pass as the old fellows talk of the times when
they were first married and settled, and of the
hardships they have endured, and how the chill
dren have grown up and gone away, and the con-
versation will drift into sleepy channel, and the
sun will begin to sink in the West, and the horny
handed sons of toll will suddenly remember that
the chores are to be done, and with "good night
Lige," and a "Drop around agin to morrow, Ike"
they will separate, and one will take a milk pail
and one leggel stool and go towards the barn
yard where the COWS have come home, while the
other will go across the road to his barn and throw
down some hay for the horses, and they will both
go to bed at eight o'clock as tired as though they
had been moving. But they had splendid, easy
visit on the old rail fence.