Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1912-05-24
THE "NO FENCE LAW"

pecially authorizes the Police Juries
of this State to prescribe the control
and police of domestic animals. I'm
der this authority they may, at pleas
ure, require the owners of live stock
to provide suitable enclosures for
such animals and declare it Inlaw-
full to allow them to roam at large"
as is the case now.
Petitions, asking that such law
be passed, are now being circulated
in the different wards of this parish,
and it is certainly to be hoped that
early and favorable action will re-
suit.
In the past the farmer has born
an unfair burden. In order to pro-
tect his crop he has been compelled
to build and maintain miles of fence
and indirectly has paid the costs of
enclosing the pastures for his neigh
boris cattle, and if he sometimes
grumEIed bit it is not surprising,
when we learn that a goodly proper
ton of these unrestrained herds bore
the brand and mark of owners
whose names do not appear on the
rolls of landed proprietors and who
are assessed but for a small percent
age of the cattle they actually own
and pasture at some one else's ex-
pense.
The prevailing custom, like the
ancestor worship" of the Orient,
has been handed down from antiq-
uity and is consequently clothed
with the sacred vestments of custom
SO aged that the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary"
In pioneer days when farms were
but isolated patches" and the ex-
pense of enclosing the cultivated
fields was negligible as compared
with the vast ranges of free post
ure," such law as is now pro-
posed would have been inequitable
and impracticable, but the oppo-
nents of the present movement lose
sight of changed conditions, of the
fact that this is now essentially an ag-
ricultural community, that the great
bulk of taxes is paid by the farmer,
and farm products constitute the
principal source of revenue. And
the farmer who surely pays the
cost Of government and produces the
source of prosperity would doubtless
have indefinitely have continued to
fence and pasture vast herds of taxed
and untaxed cattle, had not the
Mississippi over-stepped its natural
bounds and with small respect for
cost or convenience laid waste our
fences and caused q condition leay-
ing a choice twixt season of no
crops or a no fence law"
Before it is possible to restore the
destroyed fences about the fields
crops must be planted and viii be
a pray to unrestrained stock that
will soon be returning from their
refuge in the Mississippi hills.
OF course there are many engaged
in legitimate stock-raising and there
are localities where conditions seem
to justify continuance Of the present
law which requires the farmer to
maintain lawful fence" and in
such communities the proposed law
will work an apparent hardship and
injustice. But taking into consider
alton number and extent Of inter-
est, we are forced to consider the
greatest good to the greatest num-
ber," a rule that civilized society
has made imperative.
Most reforms are unpopular and
it is not to be expected that this
will be an exception, but once this
law is given fair test our intellient
citizen will wonder why so long he
was blind TO his own interest.
Our Police Jury meets in June.
Such an ordinance, if passed, will
be operative as soon as published,
and will, in effect, remove at least
one of the most serious and dam
aging results of the overflow, and
viii put this parish in line with
many other parishes in the State,
and with our sister State across
the river" in fact we are now do
ing what practically every progress
i've agricultural country has long