 Jesse Stuart Nature Preserve Greenup County, Kentucky In these parts you find two common ways that the early farmers fenced in their property. The easiest was to clear the hillside of trees and brush up to the property line, which often was the top of the ridge. The property line was rarely surveyed with markers and most deeds described the boundary in words such as 'from the big red oak on the corner of Tom Wheeler's property running SW....'. So, the line trees were never cut and made good living fence posts to divide your hillside pastureland from your neighbors. Still yet, you can find pieces of barbed wire hanging out of big oak trees that are in deep woods- telling you that at one time it was most likely a pastureland. The other method was to use posts cut from locust trees. The black locust tree was one small part of the key to self-sufficient farming on hilly, low productive land. First, the tree is a legume which means that it works like clover to fix nitrogen in the root system, allowing the tree to be grown in very poor soil and improve it. Even on the worst of farms, the farmer could raise his own fence posts. I once planted a few on a small bulldozed section of ground and it wasn't too many years before the trees were fencepost size. Next, the locust wood was one of the hardest around and is the slowest wood to rot in the ground. Farmers reported that fence posts could last 50 years or more in well drained soil. The post above would easily be more than 30 years old, considering that I think the nature preserve bought the property more than 25 years ago. There's one other piece of trivia that I want to share. The posts would often hollow out in the middle due to the rain and sun, making a nice pocket down inside the middle of it. This roof-less cavity became a favorite nesting site for the Eastern Bluebird. The switch to steel fence posts has been credited to causing at least part of the decline of the bluebird, although most of the problem seems to be chemicals and the introduction of the English Sparrow. Bluebirds seem to be on the return, though, and you see lots of nesting boxes along the highways of Kentucky. Disclaimer: I'm not a wood expert, so if you miss Final Jeopardy- don't come lookin' for me. Comment (10) | Permalink |
4x6photo.com | Fencepost and barbed wire | 26 January, 2006
