Norwich bulletin., 1915-05-01

I fifty per cent. better, then it might be
 said to pay" should think.
 For another thing, consider the value of the example set to more shiftless neighbors. Most of us have some of that sort about us. We are greatly in- clined to give them "a piece of our
 mind" now and then. If we yield to
 the temptation and actually do so, the chances are that we cause hard feel ings. Anyway, preaching is seldom as effective as practice; exhortation sell dom as influential as example. Even the most easy going and careless
 farmer can't help being stirred to something like progress if his neigh
 bors on both sides are right-up-to- he.minute chaps If he sees their
 fields kept clean and trim, their fences neat and orderly, their weed breeders checked, he can't help contrasting the
 difference in his own slovenly borders and being moved towards some sort of imitation.
 But I'm frank to say that what that quoted paragraph at the beginning set
 me to thinking about, most of all, was not 'the other side'' of my own fences,
 but ''the other side" of certain line fences between me and my neighbors. Now, a line fence is always and every where a pretty ticklish thing to touch. That we all know. It's very often a mighty sore spot, too. Of course I have no right, when I'm cleaning up along my side of a line fence. to jump over and clean up my neighbor's side; no right. even if have the time and inclination. And there's precious lit tie use in keeping my side of such a fence clean and tidy if my neighbor maintains on the other side a hedge row of bushes and briars and weeds from ten to forty feet wide. No fence will keep their roots from creeping under it nor their seeds from scatter ing through or over it. For many years that has been the exact condition of things on my north line, The farm next me, that way. belonged to a slack farmer who, moreover, lived a mile from 1t and had very little interest in how 1t looked. As a result a very nasty hedge-row had grown up on his side the old, tuInbledown fence. Spite of all I could do, suckers from his side were continually coming up on my side. At least twice year I had to
 bush-hook them down, but this af- forded only temporary relief and the measly little stumps at last got so thick and so high that I was begin ming to despair Last year, however, he sold out. The new owner doesn't like hedge-rows any better than I do. He promptly tore away the wretched relics of what had been fence which
 belonged to him in the division and
 then, preparatory to putting up a bet ter one. proceeded to blow out and dig out the weeds and briars and bushes on his side.
 Say" ne called over to me, one day, have you any objection to my blow ing out the roots and stumps on your side, too?''
 Any objectionr' I replied, 'Lord bless you, I've been aching to ask you to do it, but was afraid you might think 1t was too cheeky for me to ex- pect you to do my work
 "Oh, we'll" he responded, I'm right here with horses and tools; it won't take me much if, any longer to do a good job than a half one: and guess it'll help me as much as you to have the whole pesky snarl dug out.''7
 So he went on, blowing out the whole thing, sometimes six or eight feet over on my side, wherever there was call. When he got to a tangle which the horses and blow weren't equal to, went over with pick and bar and old axe and helped him, some times on my side and sometimes on his We didn't either one of us pay the slightest heed to- the position of our Tine" When he comes to put LID a new fence, that will be of some in- portance but, in the matter of clean ing up the old hedge-row we neither of us stopped to pay attention to what might be "the other side'