VOL. LXIII
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 15, 1908.
NO. 33
%xpzvizuct ^Department
VALUE OF STRAIGHT FENCES.
The Figures are Surprising:.
1st Premium.—There is a greater loss of
ground caused by the old worm fence, as
compared with the straight wire fence,
than we would imagine until we stop to
ligure up the loss. I have in mind au
ordinary square 160 acre farm, with a
ritihlic road on two sides and Hue fences
sin the other two sides. Now by my way
of figuring there is a loss of 6V2 feet
v, idth, allowing 4% feet worm and one foot
on either side for rails extending beyond
the lap. This is supposed to be for a
worm fence that is built up nice and
straight, and not one corner in and another out. The 160 acres will require
ssiy 1280 rods of fence, not allowing for
orchard, truck patch, barn yard, etc. The
old worm fence row that we cannot plow
will necessarily be 10% feet, while the
straight fence row need be but 4 feet, a
difference of 6% feet. A loss of QY2 feet
on 12s80 rods will figure a net loss of
three and five-thirty-thirds acres.
This is not all the loss. The worm
fence is simply a nursery for weeds, brush
nnsl briers. It blows down and is pushes!
down by stock, and sometimes a big loss
oomes in that way. There is only one
thing in its favor that I know of, to offset its disadvantages, and that is it has
no posts to rot off in a few years.
The above is a fair estimate of the
.1 mount of land we lose by the worm fence
when, we keep the fence row clean and
farm close to fence, but if we allow brush.
1 n'ers and weeds to take possession for a
number of feet on each side then the loss
will be greater. B.
Four Miles of  Fence on 160 Acres.
2d Premium.—It is rather difficult to
make an estimate of the amount of ground
tliat is lost on an average 160 acre farm
by worm rail fences as compared with
straight fences. It depends very much
on the kind of farming that is engaged in
.'ind how many fields are desired; also the
manner in which the fence rows are handled.
To divide the farm into 20 acre fields,
with orchard, garden, barn yards, feed
l"ts, truck patches, etc., will require about
four miles of fence. Usually a rail fence
is given four feet worm, while the space
occupied by a wire fence corresponds to
•he diameter of the posts. We may say
then that there is a difference of at least
a yard in favor of the straight fence. Un-
(ler some circumstances, however, the difference is not so great, as some farmers
have their fence rows set in timothy and
tin's is mowed as regularly as the timothy
meadows. But a great many, because
"f the inconvenience of mowing the fence
rows by hand, permit them to go untouches and this ground is therefore lost. There
ls always some space on either side of a
fence that is not worked, but this perhaps does not apply more to one kind of
fecne than another. For this reason we
°an only reckon the ground that is actual-
>>' occupied by the fence. If the fence
r"ws were set in grass and were regularly
"»>wed the difference would not be great,
''Ut considering the fact that this is not
usually done we may say that the differ-
enc| amounts to a strip of ground a yard
wide and four miles long. This would
"Jake \i_ acres, enough for a Chinaman,
rrpnchman or Italian to make a fortune
on. There would really be more difference than this iu the actual width of the
fentes, but since some profit is usually
derived from the fence rows by pasturing
we may estimate it at a yard in width.
It is often said that a foreigner could
make a good living on the ground that is
wasted in on American farm, and when
we see people plowing farther and farther
away from the fence, because of the en-
cioaehing brush, we cannot help but
think that this is true in far too many
cases. A. B. C.
A SERIOUS  QUESTION.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Mr. Gregory's article, "Question of
Farm Help," is well worth attention. As
this matter is becoming a serious one we
have some expressions that seem pertinent
to the times.
This country is a great agricultural
section and yet the rewards in the way
of paying crops is far from satisfactory,
and unless this is in some way changed
farming must take a back seat among
the callings.       The great change made in
A Grant County Farm Home, Owned by Samuel Leer.
Rail  vs. Wire.
3d Premium.—There is a large amount
of ground totally lost to the farmer who
has  nothing  but  rail  fences. Figures
show that in a farm of approximately
100 acres the waste due to rail fences is
about twelve times the necessary waste
where wire is used.
The width of the average rail fence is
about six feet; of the wire fence, not to
exceed six inches. In an interior fence,
the difference between rail and wire would
be five and one-half feet multiplied by its
length; whereas in a partition fence the
difference would be two feet nine inches
multiplied by the length. In a 160; ere
farm where wire is used, the loss aggregates 33 square rods; with rail fences exclusively, the loss is 400 square rods. By
using the wire 367 square rods, or more
than two acres, is saved, this being the
difference between the one kind of fence
ond the other.
Any kind of a straight, narrow fence ;s
far superior to the old-fashioned, unsightly,
ineffective worm'rail fence. I hope that
tht.rtly the wire fence, trim, neat, durable,
effective, will become universal; for it ro
mains the best type of fence ever invented.
C. S. tt.
No. 650, Aug. 22.—When, a green crop,
such as clover, is turned under, what is
the effect on the soil and on the succeeding crop?
No. 651, Aug. 29.—If you sell 200 bushels of wheat from 10 acres of ground and
make no return of fertilizer to the soil,
how much land have you sold; that is, how
much is the soil depleted?
the farming population, from 1870 to the
present, indicates a return to feudalism
which prevailed all over Europe for centuries. One of the leading causes of
this scarcity of farm help is the exodus
of all the young men to the cities.
Judge Grosscup of Chicago fully illustrated this feature in an able address In
Cincinnati last fall. He said: "The
vast number of young men leaving the
farms for city life is changing the nation from an agricultural to a commercial
one, very much to the detriment of the
nation."
In this county forty years ago the writer was a teacher, well acquaiuted all over
the country with the conditions of tlungs
iu   the   farming   communities. "Eivery
farm home had its own help in the family
of boys aud girls, and instead of the expensive machinery of this age the crops
were tended by manual labor. True, the
areas were less in extent than now, but
the returns were greater in proportion, because of ample help at much less expense.
Our schools afforded ample means for
a proper education of the young boys
and girls and as a rule these children were
happy  and contented  with  their lot.
But a great change has come over the
tation. Our country schools no longer
furish the necessary qualifications to the
young in the way of an education, and
as soon as they become familiar with the
A, B, C's ths?y are hustled off to the town
or city schools', where they have so many
taore facilities to make or unmake themselves—too often the latter.
Every morning, from early fall till late
iu the spring, a score or more of these
country lads and lasses come from their
rural homes to the town for their higher
education.
Want of proper exercise, so easily had
ou the farm, is supplied by gymnasiums
or foot ball scrambles, till finally these
become distasteful.
The brain is superficialy crammed with
nonsense, in the way of studies not essential in ordinary life, and the cliild loses
all love of home and its surroundings.
At the end of the course they graduate
nnd take themselves off to the cities for
an easy life, leaving the old father and
mother to care for the farm. Now comes
the result:
Shorn of the necessary help in farm
matters the farmer provides instead a
large amount of costly machinery to replace the loss of the children's help, only
to find thut it does not prove a paying
investment. The   cost,   breakage   and
wear, combined with the short time used,
all go to cause the debit side of the ledger
to overbalance tbe credit side, and soon
you hear of the farm being deserted by
its owner for a home in town as a retired
farmer, while the acres go uncultivated
us of yore.
What becomes of the young man who
tl.us left the farm for the city?
Judge Grosscup says: "Not one out of
a thousand ever own property. They
simply become vassals to corporations, as
clerks, etc., at a fixed salary, barely sufficient to live on,—and so they live and
die."
Half a century ago the writer left his
town home for the country, and the same
fsrm that he moved onto he still owns,
surrounded with plenty; no ambitious desires for city notority ever troubled him.
God has blessed our labors in the rearing
of a large family, all of whom work
in cooperation and all look upon labor
as a bessing, not a curse.
Brother farmers, am I not right in my
surmises as to what is depleting our
farms of their rightful help? And if I
am have we not a remedy? Stop catering to the whims and fancies of a superficial life and enter upon that broader
plane of usefulness laid down by the
Deity. "By  the sweat  of  thy  brow"
shalt thou earn thy way through this life.
Keep the boys on the farm. Make
them partners of all the farm interests,
provide amusements tbat will keep them
away form the glare of the footlights of
shame aud moral decay so common to
town and city life, and by so doing we
will raise up a race of men and women
to honor labor and respect the wants and
needs of age when we ourselves cease to
labor. J. H. Haynes.
Carroll Co.
The year 1907 witnessed a marked advance in mining in Alaska, despite the
fact that the value of the production decreased $2,503,237 as compared with 1906.
Nearly all of this decrease was in the output of gold, and is ascribed to labor difficulties at Nome and Fairbanks and to
the diversion of labor to work that ia not
immediately productive—the installation
of mining plants, which are expected later
to yield correspondingly large returns. The
fall in the price of copper also contributed
to the total decrease in production. As it
was however, the preliminary estimates
show that Alaska produced $19,600,000 in
gold, $1,040,000 in copper, and $231,771 in
other minerals.