The land I own was grown up in prairie grass to the horse’s bridle I’ve been told when the first pioneer settlers came to Missouri from more civilized places.
The Osage would annually burn the prairie which would also burn the understory of the hardwood forests that grew on hillier parts of the land.
To have used Osage Orange for hedge fences or wooden rails would have not worked because of the annual fires.
And while stones were used to fence homesteads and build up road beds the easier path was to raise animals such as chickens, hogs, and dairy cows that always come home to be fed and tended.
After barbed wire came the prairies were turned over and planted and hedge post fences put up which can stand annual burning.
My father didn’t own a brush hog except for a few years in the late 60s until he died in 1971. He burned the fields.
The last fences I put up are all steel, even the corner and line posts, and herbicide keeps the brush down to where they are completely fireproof and should last a century, if kept in repair.
The Osage would annually burn the prairie which would also burn the understory of the hardwood forests that grew on hillier parts of the land.
To have used Osage Orange for hedge fences or wooden rails would have not worked because of the annual fires.
And while stones were used to fence homesteads and build up road beds the easier path was to raise animals such as chickens, hogs, and dairy cows that always come home to be fed and tended.
After barbed wire came the prairies were turned over and planted and hedge post fences put up which can stand annual burning.
My father didn’t own a brush hog except for a few years in the late 60s until he died in 1971. He burned the fields.
The last fences I put up are all steel, even the corner and line posts, and herbicide keeps the brush down to where they are completely fireproof and should last a century, if kept in repair.
