Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1875 — Fence Posts. [ARTICLE]

Fence Posts.

Over twenty-ttvo years ago I hit upon a plan of preparing fence posts that insures their durability better than any way that I have ever heard of. I don’t admire the plan of “ hiding a light under a half bushel,” so I will give you my experience. My attention was called to it by seeing fishermen putting nets and lines in hot coal tar, as they told me, to keep them from rotting. I was then fencing a lot, using cedar posts, and as I was short two or three I got some common white oak pieces from a saw-mill, four inches by six, and put them in boiling coal tar to the depth of over two and half feet; kept them there from twenty to thirty minutes. There was a shallow drain across the lot in which there was water in wet weather during winter and spring. I set these posts in that low place, leaving six or eight inches that had been in tar above the ground. I made no further experiments then. Six. teen years after that I had occasion to move the fence, and I found the cedar posts me re or less decayed. Some had taken a dry rot, and would break oft at the top of the ground; many were half decayed, and few, if any, entirely soqnd. To my surprise I found the tarred oak posts as sound as when put in. I used them in making a shed; about a year ago the shed was torn down and the posts were cut off at the ground, showing no signs of decay. The year after tearing down the lot fence I put a post and plank fence along the side of an orchard which adjoined a public road. The gate-posts and some others prepared in the way I have mentioned, i did not have facilities t* prepare many. To-day many of the posts are one-third rotted off at the surface of the ground, and all more or less decayed, except that where tarred they are apparently just as sound as when they were set. I have since been using the boiling tar in various ways on timber, where there was danger of its rotting, and with like results. I think the heat measurably injures the elasticity of wood, but that it does it no injury for fence-posts,. I know that in making plank fence the great objection is the cost and frequent renewal of the posts. This method, if once adopted, will be of almost incalculable benefit to many prairie farmers. My plan is this: Get a cylinder, say No. 12 iron, not less, and from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, and long enough to insure the immersion of posts to a proper depth, say three and a half feet, have a east-iron bottom riveted on, and all is ready; it is much the best to have the posts seasoned a year, for otherwise the sap boiling out as the tar fills, the pores of the wood makes a renewal of the tar necessary oftener than if dry. — Cor. Rural World. A Fairfifld (Me.) youth announces that he will give achromo to the young lady who will take him “ for better or for worse.” No special rates for clubs, however.