Nevada County picayune., 1888-10-10
ECONOMY iN FENCING.
Helpful Hints for Farmers De sirous of Saw
 ing Work and Money.

up on u majority of farms. and that they can farm more pleasantly and pr0ftably in large than in small fields. have neighbor with fam of l6O acres, who, two years ago, removed mile of division fences. dl! now tells
 me that he would not allow any one to put them back if they would do it free of cost Several farmers of my neigh borhood who have removed division
 fences, so as to give them fields from
 100 to l60 rods long. have made careful estimate of the amount of work team can do in these long fields as compared with short ones. and they find it takes a third longer to blow given amount in short Ow6. Mr. Bonham. State Secretary of the Ohio Board of Agriculture, has some fields which are nearly Il half milo long and only about onc-fourth as wide, and he tells me that team would cultivate one of those fields the long way in just two-third5 the time it took the short way. l have now in my em- ploy young man who worked three years on farm laid off in fields aycr- aging a third of mile long. and he found that he could cultivate an acre of corn an hour with ease, and keep it up day after day. As about six and One-half rows made an acre, it will be seen that he only had to walk about two and one-fourth miles and turn his team six and one-half times to cultivate an acre.
 Ten years ago I removed division fences so that, with the exception of four acres around the barn. which is divided into as many lots for pigs. calves, etc, my farm of ninety acres is all in two fields. One field of thirty acres, which is rolling and has never failing springs, is a permanent pasture. | The fifty-iive acre inclosure is never grazed, summer nor winter. Clover is sown on all land in small grain, and either cut for hay or seed, OF else 1t IS plowed under. We plow down on an average about fifteen acres year. the clover growing only between 1 harvest and autumn, and being plowed down either late in the fall or early the next spring. Any one who has never tried the plan of letting clover grow without being fed at all. from wheat harvest till fall. would be sur priSed to see what Il growth it will often make. About two years out of three get as heavy a growth as is common in June, and occasionally it natures d crop of seed.
 Reducing the amount of fence is not the only way of ecouomizing fence on the farm. for have also learned how to make vrry cheap and yet effective fences. First. except around two of the acre lots, all my division fences are made to turn cattle only. My farm is better suited to wheat and
 grass than to corn, and my system of
 farming is mixed one. We run 5 1 modcrate-sized dairy, and do not want hogs in the pasture to wallow in the water, and so ouy hogs are all kept in
 pens and feed lots, and the fences made to turn cattle only The fence between the pasture and blow land is made by d row of locust trees set four feet apart, with single barbed wire staplcd to them three and one half feet from the ground. and d row of Osugo brush laid along under the wire. These trees were planted in lS7H and in 1883 we stapled the wire to them and fixed the fence. It cost eight cents rod. Including and place the brush. and each spring since We have added load of brush. putting on one here and there whero needed. There are so many large hedges in the neighb0rhood that wo can always get all the hrush needed for the hauling. and it has not cost fifty cents d year to keep up this fifty rods of fence, and it is q perfect pro- tecti0n Many of the trees are already large enough for posts. am 20 pleased with this that have started rows of trees for two other lines Oi fence along the south border of a pasture field. Another cheap fence which have found to tuty horses and cattle perfectly is made by setting good, substantial posts from thirty to forty feet apart The end posts are strongly braced and three plain wires stretched. Tho lower wire k two feet from the ground, the second one ten inches higher. and the top ono seventeen inches above tho last, or four feet and three inches above the ground. Next, we drive d good, stout stake every live or six feet, and staple the wires to thom, and then nail thrco-inch strip of board be, tween the two uppcr wires. This board is to enable the stock to see the fence and keep them from running into it, and the fence is not safe without it. as horses and sometimes cattle will run into it with such force as to break 1t and perhaps injure themselves. l have used this fence three years and have novor had a horse or COW get over, under or through it. IL can be built rapidly aul at less cost for material than any fence l have ever seen. grow my own stakes by planting locust groves, with the trees two or three feet apart in rows eight feet wide and then trim and use the cuttings for stakes. I have now l50 Osage stakes which l got for trimming out where a neighbOr had cut down an old hedge l expect to hnilA q fnnnn- nnN1 anl.iunc tn nua-- "A