Those of us who have farms often want to not have to think about our farm fences. A farm fence, especially if well built, is supposed to stand there and stand there, doing its job without further attention. But of course, things that are supposed to be semi-permanent, requiring little or no attention, have a way of demanding attention at the most inconvenient times. Right when you need to be doing other chores or errands, you discover that the cows have found a hole in the fence and they are out in the neighbor's pasture, or out in the road. You can't just leave them until you are more in the mood or when it is more convenient to take care of the situation. When the cows are out, it is a priority situation, demanding immediate attention, and needing to be followed up with some fixing fence work.
Today, farm fences quite customarily are made up of four or five strands of tightly-stretched barbed wire, held up by steel T-posts placed every 8 or 10 feet, with corners braced by stout corner post arrangements designed to brace the corner and hold against the strain of the wire. Various kinds of barbed wire have been available for long years, but in earlier times the fence posts tended to be wooden posts, which often were made from trees growing on the farm, and prepared as fence posts by splitting the log and chopping or sharpening one end of each post to a point. The point would then be driven into a hole in the ground, which would have been opened with a hole punch bar and wallowed out at the top by wobbling the bar back and forth. The post would then be driven into the hole using a 12-pound post maul. Managing a 12-pound post maul was a skill that farm boys learned when they were teenagers, when they were ready to flex their muscles and show that they could do the job like a man. The object was to give the top end of the post a good solid WHOCK without glancing off the post and pounding one's foot or smashing one's shin. If you hit part of yourself with a post maul, the result is rarely good. Barbed wire fences built on wooden posts were fastened with staples driven into the post over the wire. Often farm overalls were made with a loop to carry your hammer, and with pockets on the legs to carry your pliers, your staple puller and your wire cutter. In other words, your farmer britches were made for old-time fence work. I guess some of those features are not much used today, but clothes made for farming are still often equipped with the hammer loop and pockets for pliers, screwdrivers, and other tools. I have a pair of fairly new jeans which has the hammer loop and tool pockets.
As can be observed on the Pea Ridge National Military Park lands, farm fences in the 1800s often took the form of rail fences. President Abraham Lincoln is said to have spent a good deal of time during his early life splitting rails for building fences. Although there are other ways to use rails for fences, one very common method is illustrated in the examples on the Military Park, where the rails are stacked in a zig-zag pattern. Talk about lots of work in building a fence! That was lots of work, cutting the tree, trimming the log, splitting it into rail-sized sections, carrying the rails to the site, and laying up the fence. The fence would be stronger if the spots where the rails crossed were notched to help hold the rails in place. It is a bit mind-boggling to think of how many trees had to be cut and split to make the old-time zig-zag style rail fence. Another style of rail fence which would use somewhat less wood and would stand straighter would be done by setting two posts side by side, just far enough apart to stack the rails between them. Both styles make an interesting and effective fence, but rail fences of any kind require lots of wood and lots of work to build.
The fences I have mentioned so far have been kinds which might serve as boundary fences for one's farm property, or for separating certain fields where you want to control your livestock access, keeping the cows out from some areas of your land. Today, our northwest Arkansas farms tend to be mostly hay fields and pastures for cattle. But in earlier days, we had corn fields, fields of oats for the horses, wheat and barley fields, truck patch areas, and vegetable gardens. We fenced those areas to keep the livestock out. But, as part of the operation of a livestock farm, other kinds of fences were often found around the farm buildings, around the barn lots, and so on; fences designed for confining and managing, or loading and unloading farm animals. Those barn-lot fences might use specialized wire, such as hog-wire for the pigs, or chicken wire for the chicken pens; but for cows and calves the lot fences were often built with heavy lumber, often oak, sometimes cedar if available.
Much of farm fencing is very utilitarian and plain Jane, meant to do its job at minimal expense. But sometimes, when more money is available, we may see large-scale welded steel fences, or white plastic fences, or chain-link fences with nice top bars and fine gates, or even wrought-iron fences in decorative patterns.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 08/19/2015