FENCE IN, FENCE OUT

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The following are representative prices of No. 2 Southern (or yellow) pine posts:

GATES

"Boughten" gate;; ace expensive, IN our area the wooden type costs about the same as galvanized steel and seems to be more popular . with farmers, who like its weight and durability. A wooden gate is a heavy burden, though, and hinges-like knees and knuckles-tend to bind up with age. I'll be darned if I see why steel won't last just as long.

The following are current prices for galvanized gates in our parts:

FENCING COSTS

The bill for running a 11 fence around a 10 - acre meadow can add up pretty rapidly. Figure it out. The circumference of an acre (44,000 square feet) is just under 840 feet, or 51 rods. If you set posts at 12-foot intervals you'll need 70 per acre. For 10 acres, that's 700.

Next throw in four corner and two gate posts, plus 10 braces (run horizontally between each corner upright and the next line post on either side for each corner and on both sides of a gate), and here's what uprights for that 10-acre fence line will cost

Then there's the wire: The circumference of 10 acres-510 rods requires 26 rolls of fencing (at 20 rods per roll). If you're using 10476-11, you'll be stringing one strand of barbed wire above the woven (to keep livestock from leaning on the fence) and at 80 rods to the roll of barb, that figures out to 7 trolls. Add a gate, and you have the following:

The combined cost of posts, wire, and gate for the 10-acre fence line then -as you can see-comes to $3,638.90 which means that around and here, as of late 1974, a good enclosure for cattle, sheep, or horses will run you a jolting $363 per acre.

HOMEMADE POSTS

What I've been describing so far is, of course, the new Cadillac fence. How about a used VW? There's not much you can do about the price of wire but you can save a lot on posts by cutting and treating your own.

Cedar, pine, juniper, the maples, and most softwoods will make usable supports for woven wire fencing if each tree's core is solid and the timber is treated right. If you have locusts growing on your place, though, you are blessed indeed. "Tough as a pig's nose," Bill Deavers claims. "I never soaked a locust post, don't need to. Some my daddy put in when I was a boy are still strong."

Locust wood is heavy, solid, and dense in grain a quality that seems to frustrate termites. Even a chain saw takes its time chewing through the heart of such a tree. I've cut into some ancient locust posts pulled out of old fences, and-while they looked wretched on the outside the centers were tough and untouched by borers. The wood will hold a staple, too if, you can drive one in without breaking it in the middle.

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