Fence post

“ A simple arrangement for holding a post while it is being bored or mortised, is shown in figure 148. It consists of two long pieces of round or square timber, lying parallel upon the ground, and two shorter sticks restingPage 97 upon them at right angles. The upper pieces have saddles cut out for the posts to fit into. A staple with a large iron hook or “dog,” is fastened into one end of each cross-piece, as shown in the engraving. When the post is laid in position, the hooks are driven into it holding it firmly.
DRIVING FENCE POSTS BY HAND. ”

“ As these fences, from their serpentine course, occupy at least six times as much ground as a common post and rail fence, and require also a great deal more wood, they are mostly laid aside whenever land and timber become objects of importance, as they soon do in the neighbourhood of large towns. ”

“ The joints should always be “broken,” as is shown in the engraving, figure 25, so that in a four-board fence but two joints should come on each post. By this means more firmness and durability is secured, there being always two unbroken boards on each post to hold it in place, preventing sagging. On the face of the post immediately over where the rails have been nailed on, nail a flat piece of board the width of the post and extending from the upper part of the top rail to the ground. ”

“ Midway between the garden and the house, opposite the door, was a whitewashed well curb. From a long pole, suspended in a forked tree on a round locust pin, hung a sapling fastened to a bucket. Everything about the little farm was well kept. The chimney and the palings were whitewashed, the fence was well laid up, the bit of land was clean. Midway in the meadow, a path entered through wooden bars and ran along inside the rail fence to the house.
There was a little crowd of some half dozen men standing about these bars, when the woman and child came up. ”

“ The fence is a quarter of a mile, running back from the river, and cost £10, being of only posts and two rails at present. A ditch and bank at the bottom is required to make it a complete fence against sheep; it now is sufficient against cattle, being about 4ft. 6in. high to the top of the post. The natives have speared my poor friend Weenat very badly at Guildford. ”

“ The fence is fastened to the post with common fence staples. When this style of fence is used on one side of a pasture or highway, its effectiveness may be increased by a singlePage 41 strand of barbed wire stapled to the posts above the pickets, and a strand of plain wire strung along the bottom to stiffen it. The fence will then be as in figure 56. Such a fence will last many years, and for most sections of the country is the best and cheapest combined cattle and hog fence that can be made. For a garden fence it is equal to the best picket, and at one third of the cost. ”

“ By releasing the cranks and ratchet, the follower will run down the guides, and, striking the maul, will “click” the latch into place, ready for another hoist. For two men it is easy work, and can be handled quite rapidly. Drive astride the proposed line of fence; lay a measuring-pole on the ground to mark the spot for the next post; drive forward with the post driver, having the maul partly raised, set up a post, and proceed to drive it.
SETTING A GATE POST. ”

“ May I not become the vine of the beloved, which after being planted and entrenched, and made sure with a fence and tower and every means which was possible, when it ran wild and bore thorns, was consequently despised, and had its tower broken down and its fence taken away, and was not pruned nor digged, but was devoured and laid waste and trodden down by all! ”

“ The new branches soon form a bushy head, which may be cut back from time to time. It is not advisable to nail boards or drive staples directly into the tree. With a board fence, the swaying of the tree loosens the nails, and if barbed wire is stapled to the tree, the bark and wood will in time grow over them as in figure 161. To obviate this, a stick is nailed to the tree as in figure 162, and to this the fence is attached. A still better method is to secure thePage 107 strip of wood to the tree by two or three pairs of interlocking staples.
MENDING A SPLIT POST.
Fig. ”

“ This holds the post solid against the brace. A heart-rail, ten feet in length makes a good brace. Put one of the long posts every sixteen or twenty rods along the line of fence, as they help to strengthen it, and set lighter and shorter posts along the line about sixteen feet apart. After the posts are set, two or three furrows should be turned against them on each side, as it helps to keep stock from the wire. Such a fence should be built of a good height. It is better to buy an extra wire than have stock injured. There is no pulling over end-posts or sagging wire.
Page 51 ”

“ The stringers are eight to twelve feet in length, and usually one of the flat sides is sufficiently smooth for receiving the pickets. Let the stringers project a few inches beyond each post, adding strength to the fence, and should the posts decay, new ones may be driven in on either side, and the stringers readily attached by heavy nails or spikes. With timber that splits freely, a man can rive out five or six hundred pickets in a day. The construction of the fence is plainly shown in the above engraving. ”

“ In moving fence, place the spool on the frame; remove one end of the wire from the post, fasten it to the spool, and while one man holds the pole and steers and steadies the sulky—he will have to pull back a little—another turns the spool and winds up the wire. ”

“ The enclosures are made of hurdles, of which all reading Americans have read, but not one in a thousand ever has seen. They are a kind of diminutive, portable, post-and-rail fence, of the New England pattern, made up in permanent lengths, so light that a stout man might carry two or three of them on his shoulders at once. ”

“ Properly used, this instrument will pack the soil around a post as it was before the hole was dug. In putting on fence boards, most builders use two nails on the ends of each board, and one in the middle. Each board should have at least three nails at the ends, and two in the middle, and these nails should never be less than ten-pennys. Smaller nails will hold the boards in place for awhile, but when they begin to warp, the nails are drawn out or loosened, and the boards drop off. This will rarely be the case where large nails are used, and a much stiffer fence is secured. ”

“ For instance, a wooden fence and gate-post would be entirely inappropriate if one were dealing with a beautiful summer estate where the house was to be built of brick.
Compositions should not be carelessly used and it should be remembered that there is great danger in our zeal for producing something unique, of going to the other extreme and giving an over-ornamental creation. One cannot be too particular in making the entrance and the adjoining fence accord with the idea one is trying to bring out in the whole plan.
The driveway is of fully as much importance as the entrance. ”

“ A very cheap fence is made of two boards below and three strands of barb wire. To make the fence pig-proof without the boards, five strands of wire, three inches apart, would be required at the bottom. Two common fencing boards will occupy the same space, when placed three inches apart, and cost less. But for the upper part of the fence, wire is much cheaper than boards. The most considerable item in this greater economy is the saving of posts. The wire requires a post every sixteen feet ”

“ In Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, and some other States, a legal fence must be four and a half feet high. In Missouri post fences must be four and one half feet high, hedges four feet high, turf fences four feet high, with ditches on each side three feet deep in the middle and three feet wide; worm fences must be five and one-half feet high to the top of the rider, or if not ridered, five feet to the top of the top rail, and must be rocked with strong rails, poles or stakes; stone or brick fences must be four and one-half feet high. ”

“ If they are not secure, climb over the fence and put in a few good wire nails, for if the fence is not strong your structure will be weak. Additional strength may be gained by making each of the uprights of [175] two pieces of two-by-four, nailed together, thus making the posts four-by-four.
Fig. 131.
Fig. 132.
It is a good plan to erect one of the posts directly over one of the fence-posts; this will add strength and stiffness [176] to the structure. If you have any doubts about the ability of the fence to support the platform, erect two seven-foot posts, as in Fig. ”

“ For romance, my masters, is no blear-eyed spinster mooning over the trumpery of a heyday that is gone, but a Miss Mischief offering her dainty fingers to you before the kiss of your grandfather's lips is yet dry on them. The damask petticoat, the powdered wig, and the coquettish little patch by her dimpled little mouth are off and into the garret, and she sweeps by in a Worth gown, or takes a fence on a thoroughbred, or waits ankle deep in the clover blossoms for some whistling lover, while your eyes are yet a-blinking. ”

“ Timber and Fuel. An occupant of a homestead quarter-section, having no suitable timber of his own, may obtain on payment of a 25-cent fee a permit to cut 3,000 lineal feet of building timber, 400 roof poles, 500 fence posts, 2,000 fence rails. ”

“ JAGGED WIRE A rail fence is more than that on a country dawn moving by lots over hill & stone; it barely pauses in the small of the field's lap, then is caught in grey positioning as light unfurls the sky. All is a matter of perfect blistering - dauber wasps are seen to heave the moistened wood in chunks to mossy furrows, benign in their firm embrace upon alabaster trees. There, crusts of heavy nails, marked like fortresses, droop in their rusty mail. Mostly ants, in open canter, move in as upon an urn & lance far more than jagged wire the breath of stillest air. ”

“ It is authoritatively stated that the building and maintenance of the farm fences in the United States have cost more than the construction of the farm buildings. Be this as it may, while large numbers of works have been written upon rural architecture we believe this is the first publication specially devoted to Fences, Gates and Bridges. It aims to be a practical work, showing the “evolution” of the fence from the road barrier of logs, brush or sods to the latest improved forms of barbed wire. ”

“ Here you will find every description of fence in miniature, neat and new and complete, like the furniture in a doll’s baby-house—a little hedge, a little ditch, a little double, and a very little gate, cunningly constructed on mechanical principles so as to let you off easily should you tamper with its top bar, the whole admirably adapted to encourage a timid horse or steady a bold one. ”

“ Yes, there is no doubt that this wooden fence, stretching right across the Gardens, relieved by overseers' moveable hatch-houses, puffing steam-cranes, and processions of mud-carts, rather interfere with the beauty and tranquillity of the place, but one must really bear in mind that it is, after all, only to last for live years. ”

“ Rail fences had several distinct merits: they provided a practical use for some of the trees felled to clear crop and pasture land; they required little repair; they blended esthetically into the surroundings and landscape. Mountain fences have been described as “horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight.” W. Clark Medford, of North Carolina, has told us how worm fences (right) were built:
H. Woodbridge Williams Charles S. Grossman
“There was no way to build a fence in those days except [Pg 31] with rails—just like there was no way to cover a house except with boards. ”

“ For the fence shown in figure 119, two augur holes are bored a few inches apart, and small poles driven to serve as posts. Rails or round poles of the usual length are laid to the desired height, and the top of the posts tied together with wire. In situations where timber is less plentiful, a single stake is set into the base, as in figure 120, braced, and barbed or plain wire attached by staples. Besides the advantage of being easily moved, these fences can be prepared in winter, when there is little else to do, and rapidly set in place at any time when the ground is clear of snow. ”

“ The roof and walls were, like its neighbours, of corrugated iron, and a spacious verandah encircled it; a high rush fence which inclosed the compound served to keep out intruders and prevent the curious gaze of any inquisitive passer-by. ”

“ The only evidence of man’s interference, except the buckwheat-field, was a dilapidated worm-fence, and this is one of several instances where beauty increases hand 196in hand with decay. The older such a fence, the better; when merely a support for Virginia creeper or the rank trumpet-vine, it is worthy the rambler’s regard. Wild life long ago learned what a safe snug-harbor such ruined fences offer. It puzzles even a mink to thread their mazes, and the shy rabbit that has its “form” in a brier-hidden hollow of the crooked line feels that it is safe. ”

“ When the two or three lower rails, and also the stakes, are of wood, capable of resisting the effect of damp, such as cedar, black ash, &c., a well-made fence will last for an indefinite number of years, but otherwise seven or eight years suffice to rot the lower rails, and to make constant patching necessary, which is almost as bad as making a new fence, for, to get at one of the lower rails, the fence has to be taken down for many lengths on each side, and never can be relaid so well. ”