Thoughts of a Farmer, II: Barbed Wire Fences

THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER. II.— BARBED WIRE FENCES. Around my farm is a barbed- wire fence. Not long ago one of my horses which had been out all night came to the corral in the morning badly cut up. It presented a sickening appearance. My boy exclaimed with a most discouraged look: "Barbed-wire fences are a curse, and people ought not to be allowed to build them." We applied coal tar, and such other remedies as were at hand, and turned the horse loose till nature made him fit again for service. It was one of our best horses, young and full of promise, a horse beautiful in appearance. Hereafter ugly scars will mar the admiration with which we had been wont to look upon a beauti- ful form. In time horses acquire a knowledge of the dangers of a barbed-wire fence, but it is often after a ruinous experience. Not long after this, a cow broke through our barbed- wire gate, got into the granary, tore open several sacks, and played havoc with the oats. A barbed-wire did not injure her appear- ance, and yet its scratches, when the wire is thick enough and strong enough, become formidable to her. The ordinary wire may stop a horse, but a cow or a steer pays no attention to it. Is a barbed-wire fence really a useful and good device for the farmer? Ask the man whose exclusive business it is to raise cat- tle, The horseman would and he will tell you it is indispensable. prefer not to have it To him it is a source of constant around. danger. The reply to such a question may at the same time be both Yes, and No. The barbed- wire is a good illustration of the limitation which we must sometimes put upon the words good,

110 IMPROVEMENT ERA. and bad. Some things are good for one purpose and bad for another. Words that do good at one time often engender evil at another. Words that encourage today may discourage tomorrow. Sometimes, when we discover good in a thing, we are compelled to ask ourselves the further question, "What is it good for?" It would be a very poor philosophy if we said good for one good and proper for one thing, therefore good for all things; or man, and therefore good and proper for all men. Good and bad are not words of fixed quality, for things are relatively good, and at the same time relatively bad, just as we speak of a wire fence when it relates to cattle, and when it relates to horses. Then there are those who pursue what is called mixed farm- ing. The barbed- wire fence may be both harmful and helpful to them because they raise both cattle and horses. , So things come into our lives that may be helpful today and harmful tomorrow, and even though we know some of their injurious effects we need their helpful assistance. And that brings us to the question of whether the preponderance of a thing is good or bad. If the good predominates, the bad is tolerated and avoided as much as possible. All men find more or less of a mixture of good and bad in their lives, and so it often happens that one may think poorly of a man who is well thought of by others. Why do men thus differ in their judgments about men and things? Some men can see but one thing at a time. If it hap- pens to be bad or undesirable, they are ready immediately to pass judgment. Other men have the broader capacity to see many things at one and the same time. There is an old adage that, "When two men act alike they do not do the same thing." When one is asked whether a barbed-wire fence is a good thing or a bad thing, when one is an experienced farmer, one must answer, "That depends." Jesus may have known nothing about barbed- wire fences in his day, but he knew the dangers of one- sided judgments, and admonished his hearers, "judge not." What a difficult thing it is to get a well balanced judgment And ! as we move about in the enclosures of humanity, what an advan- tage it is to have about us men and women with well balanced judgments. How much safer our characters and reputations are in their keeping.

THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. Ill There is another thing I have learned about a barbed -wire fence that a single wire stretched to the post is often more dan- : gerous than when the fence consists of four or five wires. Horses will venture to break into an enclosure that has but one wire around it, when they would stop in the presence of four or five. How often it happens in life that a single isolated temptation, which gives us an idea that we may escape it unharmed, does us more harm than a score of temptations whose number baffles and turns us back. Then again, I have noticed that a barbed- wire fence is more dangerous when most or all of its wires lie scattered on the ground, than when they are all in place and well stretched. I have noticed, too, that loose wires are more dangerous than tight ones. In this world, dangers that lie partly or wholly concealed are doubly harmful, because they are encountered in a spirit of negligence. The loose wire is more dangerous, because it seems to say, "I don't care whether I stop you or not." The danger that presents a sharp appearance, and a firm front, may overawe us, and frighten us into retreat. Men don't like to encounter things in which there is only a fighting chance. They hesitate in the presence of a firm resistance. The trouble with loose and easy going evils, in this life, is like the difficulty in passing loose wires, they follow us. Boys of easy going' indifference toward the dangers of life, gener- ally bear the scars of the scratches and cuts they hardly expected to get. Every day that I work on my farm and see that barbed-wire fence, I am glad it is there, but I know it is dangerous. I must guard against its loose wires and those that are down. It is only a barbed-wire fence, as dumb as a rock, but it speaks to the man who speaks of it. Albeita. Canada.

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