TREE FENCES AND OX CARTS
But we did see sights I never knew existed. I'll tell you how they built fences 50 to 75 years ago. The country was full of big timber. They wanted less timber and more fences. They cut the trees into 9 to 10 foot lengths, split the timber into 9 inches to a foot for thickness, squared the sides, dug long trenches three to four feet deep, and set these timbers side by side, close and tight, and then filled in and there was your fence, horse high, bull strong and pig, yes, chicken-tight, unless they flew. There are thousands of miles of that kind of fence still down there, old and moss-covered but still pretty sound and serviceable. Think of the work and loss of timber that involved.
Another big sight is the oxen and their carts. On this trip most of them were hauling timber of one sort or another, logs or sawed stuff. We saw hundreds of oxcarts and oxen. Some carts had spokes, steel tires, steel axles and metal fellers, or whatever it is the axles fit into. Many of them had wheels made of round logs with no metal tires or other metal about them. The axles ran through holes in the bare wood. They were the primitive kind, but there were hundreds of them.