Fencing bears with special severity on the pioneer class, who are least able to afford the outlay. The "clearing" of the pioneer's first year in the wilderness, being enlarged by ax and fire, needs a new and far longer environment next year; and so through subsequent years until clearing is at an end. Many a pioneer is thus impelled to devote a large share of his time to Fencing; and yet his crops often come to grief through the depredations of his own or his neighbor's breachy cattle. Fences produce nothing but unwelcome bushes, briers and weeds. So far as they may be necessary, they are a deplorable necessity. When constructed where they are not really needed, they evince costly folly. I think I could point out farms which would not sell to-day for the cost of rebuilding their present fences. We cannot make open drains or ditches serve for fences in this country, as they sometimes do in milder and more equable climates, because our severe frosts would heave and crumble their banks if nearly perpendicular, sloping them at length in places so that animals might cross them at leisure. Nor have we, so far north as this city, had much success with hedges, for a like reason. There is scarcely a hedge-plant at once efficient in stopping animals and so hardy as to defy the severity, or rather the caprice, of our Winters. I scarcely know a hedge which is not either inefficient or too costly for the average farmer; and then a hedge is a fixture; whereas we often need to move or demolish our fences. Wire Fences are least obnoxious to this objection; they are very easily removed; but a careless teamster, a stupid animal, or a clumsy friend, easily makes a breach in one, which is not so easily repaired. Of the few Wire Fences within my knowledge, hardly one has remained entire and efficient after standing two or three years. Stone Walls, well built, on raised foundations of dry earth, are enduring and quite effective, but very costly. My best have cost me at least $5 per rod, though the raw material was abundant and accessible. I doubt that any good wall is built, with labor at present prices, for less than $5 per rod. Perhaps I should account this costliness a merit, since it must impel farmers to study how to make few fences serve their turn. Rail Fences will be constructed only where timber is very abundant, of little value, and easily split. Whenever the burning of timber to be rid of it has ceased, there the making of rail fences must be near its end. Where fences must still be maintained, I apprehend that posts and boards are the cheapest material. Though Pine lumber grows dear, Hemlock still abounds; and the rapid destruction of trees for their bark to be used in tanning must give us cheap hemlock boards throughout many ensuing years. Spruce, Tamarack, and other evergreens from our Northern swamps, will come into play after Hemlock shall have been exhausted.