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Pence Posts, Importance of Tamping, etc.
A correspondent of the Country Gentleman gives the following as his plan, which the author fully endorses, of setting fence posts, except that when the hole is dug 2 feet deep to be tamped with stone I should not cut back in sharpening more than € inches, while he cuts back 12 to 15. If only to be driven 1 foot, or even" 18 inches, 6 is enough in gravelly or any soil except hard-pan or hard clay. He says:
I. " I first sharpen my posts, cutting back from 12 to 15 inches, according to the size. I then dig good sized holes, say 15 inches across and 2 feet deep; then take a crowbar and punch a hole in the bottom 10 or 12 inches deeper, making it large at the top by working the bar back and forth. I then drive the post with a heavy iron maul until the post is fully 3 feet in the ground. [The author can not think he means 3 feet below the hole dug for the stones; if he does it would require a 9 foot post—not at all probable. ] I then fill the hole with small stones well tamped with the head of the bar. Posts set in this way "will be sound and serviceable when those set at the same time in the ordinary "way and tamped with earth will be decayed and useless. A neighbor tells me that he made a piece of board fence over 30 years ago, in part of which he set the posts with stones, and the rest were tamped with earth. Those set with stone remained sound when the others had rotted away.
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