People and the Land

Fences

When the first settlers arrived in the Tennessee and Elk River valley, they brought with them horses, mules, cattle, hogs, and sheep. As they moved along the river valley and then upward along the streams into the coves, their livestock was largely set loose to wander within the natural limits of the cove walls. For most of the 19th Century, a kind of open range law prevailed; it was generally agreed and sometimes legislated that livestock had the right to range freely in the wooded coves despite property lines. Under this open range arrangement, it was generally agreed that fences were to be built to keep livestock out of areas where they were not desired rather than to keep them in. Before World War II, for instance, a wire fence ran along the front of the University Quadrangle in Sewanee to keep out the hogs that otherwise roamed freely in the yards and rough ravine areas of the campus.

After World War I, with the increasing domestication of the landscape, the sharper focusing of property lines, and with the advent of increased automobile traffic, fencing became more and more common. By then, log and stone fences had long since given way to barbed wire and other kinds of fences. The building and maintenance of fences, particularly board fences, is labor intensive and somewhat technical. The very high value of livestock today makes quality fencing extremely important for the farmer, and very good fences continue to be erected all around the county. Fences are also good indices to the quality of the farm on which they occur. Many times, as young people have left the land and as the older people face more and more difficulty in sustaining farming operations, we see two common things on these farms--decaying barns and poor fencing.

Things to look for in fences:

are the wire strands evenly spaced and taut?
has the fence been broken and mended?
are the posts upright and not bent?
are the wooden posts sound and unrotted?
is the fence row clear of weeds and vines?
is the wood fence painted or treated?

Also look for this feature if the fence is electric: what color are the insulators holding the electric wire off the fence posts? The traditional color used by the major manufacturer of electric fence supplies is red. Note however that many new electric fences use yellow insulators. The reason is that it was found that Ruby Throated Hummingbirds mistake the red insulator for a flower like the Trumpet Creeper and are frequently electrocuted. When the decline in hummingbird populations was associated with this cause, a campaign was started to select another color for the insulators. The red insulators are now being phased out and replaced with yellow insulators.

A Sampler of Fence types.