ce
firmly put in place, will retain its taut condition through many seasons
without repair. The fact of the wire being twisted allows it to adapt
itself to all the varying temperatures.

The introduction of barbed wire met with some opposition in America on
supposed humanitarian grounds, but ample and extended tests, both of the
economy and the humanity of the new material, silenced this objection. Now
no American farmer, especially in the west, ever thinks of putting any
other kind of fencing on his farm, unless it may be the new types of meshed
wire field fencing which have been coming so generally into use since 1899.
Generally speaking, the use of barbed wire fencing in other countries has
not been as extensive as in the western United States. While it has been
used on a comparatively large scale in Argentina and Australia, both these
countries use a much larger quantity of plain wire fence, and in Argentina
there is an important consumption of high-carbon oval fence wire of great
strength, which apparently forms the only kind of fence that meets the
conditions in a satisfactory manner.

It is interesting to note the largely increased demand for meshed wire
field fencing in the more thickly settled-portions of the United States,
and along the lines of railway. Beginning with 1899, there has been an
annual increase in this demand, owing to the scarcity and high cost of
labour, and the discontinuing of the building of rail fences. Meshed wire
is considered by many a better enclosure for small animals, like sheep and
hogs, than the barbed wire fence. Barbed wire has been popular with
railroads, but of late meshed wire fencing has been substituted with
advantage, the fabric being made of wires of larger diameter than formerly,
to insure greater stability. The popularity of barbed wire is best shown by
the following statistics:--

APPROXIMATE PRODUCTION FOR THE UNITED STATES

+-------+-------------------+----------------------------+
| Year. | Tons barbed wire. | Tons meshed field fencing. |
+-------+-------------------+----------------------------+
| 1874 | 5 | |
| 1875 | 300 | |
| 1876 | 1,500 | |
| 1877 | 7,000 | |
| 1878 | 13,000 | |
| 1879 | 25,000 |