46 Nebraskaland • August-September 2024
t takes a good fence to keep livestock out of a farmer's
crops or garden. In the heavily wooded eastern United
States, this was often done with split-rail fences. But how
do you build a fence on the plains, where trees are scarce?
Nebraska historian Everett Dick wrote that pioneers used
to hobble or tether horses to keep them from wandering, but
controlling herds was a bigger problem. Until Nebraska's 1870
herd law, it was your responsibility to fence your neighbor's
livestock out, and not the stockman's responsibility to fence
them in.
Osage orange hedgerows were once popular in southeastern
Nebraska. Seedlings were planted close together and their
branches carefully intertwined to grow into a hedge that was
"hog tight, horse high, and bull strong." Daniel Freeman's
circa-1875 hedgerow still remains at Homestead National
Historical Park near Beatrice.
But hedgerows were too thirsty for much of Nebraska.
The opening of lumberyards (and railroads to supply them)
created more options, but a small landowner might have to
I
Fencing
the Plains
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska
Omaha Daily Bee, May 19, 1890.
