FARM FENCES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4424, 7 June 1922, Page 4

FARM FENCES.

STEEL POSTS. (By Chesla C. Sherlock, Iowa) My grandfather tells me that he used to figure on building new fences every ten. years—and it took some pretty careful planning to make them hold up good and strong that long. He farmed for more than fifty years on Hie same place, so he had to build new fences five times in his own farming experiences. He started out: with rails and ended up with oak: posts and barbed wire. Think of the labour it took in replacing those fences, arc. the cost in money involved I He used to Jose a lot of animals from lightnipg. Most of those losses hit him pretty hard because it was in the days when lightning insurance was unknown. I saw him skin eight heifers one morning pfter a bad storm. They'd gotten too close to the wire fence. Farming certainly has been revolutionised in t'he last ten years, even in the fences that are built. Who ■would have thought of a steel post twenty years ago ? or a concrete post thirty years ago. Now farmers are killing two birds with one stone; they ret their fence posts with sledges by driving the steel posts into the ground. And they are using horsesense in putting up that kind, for fence posts made put of steel or concrete will last longer /than any man on earth now.

There’s one other advantage that is worth, a great deal, when steel posts are used. You won't have any losses from lightn’ng killing the stock. Every steel post on the farm is insurance against that, for the post grounds the wires and sends Mr. Lightning down where he belongs. If lightning strikes your fence it can travel only the distance to the next post. It won’t run around the whole farm.