Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 3, 1990 TAG: 9004030506
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Did anyone ask his neighbors, into whose yards his cattle were straying, whether they contributed their halves of money and labor for fence building and maintenance? It has forever been common law - and common sense - that fences in farm areas are of joint concern. Whether you have livestock or not, you must do your share to keep up the fence. Or bear the burden of the cows in the yard with grace.
I have many times in the past chased a scrub bull out of my garden, my rage futile because neither I nor my neighbor could afford the major fence-fixing job. Fences are expensive, you know. A dollar a foot and up. Extract that if you can from a farmer's negative income. Erecting them takes skill, believe it or not. A farmer who can put up a good fence is admired and remarked upon by other farmers. Or used to be. When there were some farmers left.
It's a fact of the suburban ooze over the countryside that destruction of farm life occurs in more subtle forms than just another trailer park. To us farmers falls all the responsibility. We must preserve the landscape, the view from the modish picture windows - and the fences.
We are to bear in silence the added tax burden, the dogs slavering after our sheep, the labeling of our bawling weaned calves as "public nusiances,' the casual cutting of our fences by children and city hunters.
Look into it, won't you? If Kavanaugh's neighbors did indeed proffer their share, then I suppose he deserves at least some of what he gets. And if they did, let me commend them, for they are surely the exceptions. HARRIET HODGES NEW CASTLE
by CNB