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Farmers, Ranchers, And The Railroad: The Evolution Of Fence Law In The Great Plains, 1865–190, Yasuhide Kawashima

Great Plains Quarterly

In North America, building fences was an essential part of life for the English settlers from the beginning. Departing from the English common law rule that required owners to fence in their cattle, nearly all the colonial legislatures and courts imposed upon landowners a duty to fence their property against trespassing cattle.l The reasons were partly to increase the meager supply of livestock by permitting cattle to wander about in order to breed faster and partly to make full use of the vast virgin forest and grassland. Gradually, however, in New England and in much of New York and New …