Why build fences?
Farmers in the 18th Century built fences to keep livestock and other animals out of their fields, not to contain animals in a certain area. Most all farmers would allow their hogs, cattle and other livestock to roam freely on their farms to find food. The fences they built were to keep them out of their crops. What types of wood are our fences made from? Our split rail fences are from locust, chestnut, oak and cedar wood. How are wattle fences made? Wattle fences are made by driving stakes into the ground and weaving vines and small branches (called withies ) between them. Pitch What is pitch? Pitch is an oily, sticky substance used to seal and waterproof wood and other substances. Where does pitch come from? Most likely, the farm family would buy pitch from a merchant in Alexandria. Pitch comes from the sap of pine and fir trees. It is obtained splitting the logs of those trees into small billets and placing them in kilns or furnaces made especially for the purpose of extracting the t
