The Arizona sentinel., 1888-09-08
ECONOMY IN FENCING.
Helpful Hints for Farmers Desirous of Saw
 ing Work and Money.

not need nall the fences that they Keep
 up on majority of farms, and that
 they can farm more pleasantly and
 profitably in large than in small fields.
 1 have neighbor with farm of 160
 acres, who, two years ago, removed a
 mile of division fences, and 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 160 rods long, have made a
 careful estimate of the amount of
 work a team can do in these long
 fields as compared with short ones,
 and they find it takes third longer to
 blow given amount in short rows.
 Mr. Bonham, State Secretary of the
 Ohio Board of Agriculture, has some
 fields which are nearly a half mile
 long and only about one-fourth as wide,
 and he tells me that a team would
 cultivate one of these fields the long
 way in just two-thirds the time it took
 the short way. have now in my em-
 ploy young man who worked three
 years on farm laid off in fields aver
 aging third of a 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-haf 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-fve acre inclosure is never grazed, summer nor winter. Clover Is sown on all land in small grain, and either cut for hay or seed, or else it is plowed under. We blow down on an average about fifteen acres 8 year, the clover growing only between harvest and autumn, and being plowcd 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 sllr- prised to see what growth it will often make. About two years out of three 1 get as heavy a growth as is common in June, and occasionally it natures a crop of seed.
 Reducing the amount of fence is not the only way of economizing fence on the farm, for have also learned how to make very 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 a moderate-sized dairy, and do not want hogs in the pasture to wallow in the water, and so our 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 row of locust trees set four feet apart, with a single barbed wire stapled to them three and one half feet from the ground, and row of Osage brush laid along under the wire. These trees were planted in 1879, and in 1883 we stapled the wire to them and fixed the fence. It cost eight cents a rod, including the wire and the time it took to draw and place the brush, and each spring since we have added load of brush, putting on one here and there where needed. There are so many large hedges in the neighborhood that we can always get all the brush needed for the hauling, and it has not cost fifty cents year to keep up this fifty rods of fence, and it is perfect pro- lection. Many of the trees are already large enough for posts. I am so pleased with this that 1 have started rows of trees for two other lines of fence along the south border of a pasture field. Another cheap fence which I have found to turn 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. The lower wire is two feet from the ground, the second one ten inches higher, and the top one seventeen inches above the last, or four feet and three inches above the ground. Next, we drive a good, stout stake every five or six feet, and staple the wires to them, and then nail a three-inch strip of board be- tween the two upper 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 it and perhaps injure themselves. I have used this fence three years and have never had a horse or COW get over, under or through it. It can be built rapidly and at less cost for material than any fence 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. l have now 150 Osage stakes which l got for trimming out where a neighbor had