Making your four-wheeler work

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4
Image 5


A four wheel ATV is a delight to ride. In fact, is so much fun many never think of it in any other way. Many folks see it as a great work horse on small farms and large, though. They are great for hunting, checking on trespassers and the like.

It is great for going places in a hurry at low cost. It only needs a trail four feet or so wide. This makes it a great vehicle for checking fences. You have the capacity to carry the necessary tools and parts to fix fence on the machine and can go many places in the woods where a pickup or even a tractor won’t go.

You can use it to check cattle, but must be careful to keep the noise down, particularly if you use it to move them. They can be used to bring cattle in, but the speed and noise frighten the animals if you don’t exercise care. If you want to move a square bale or two or a little feed they do well at that too, because they have better flotation with their soft tires and make far less mud.

I use mine to seed right of way by adding a small seeder designed for the four-wheeler. It takes a little getting used to at first, but the investment is quite low, and if stored in the dry it will last years. Sure beats walking and turning a crank. (See Image 1)



I have made two trailers for my four-wheeler. Two inch square tubing and used car wheels work fine, with a bed of treated wood. Be sure to paint all metal parts before putting the bed on to get longer life. You can use a small trailer ball hitch of the type used for pulling trailers behind a car. That works better for the extreme roll and pitch on rough ground, better than the pin in clevis type of hitch used for tractor implements.

If you are going to need electricity from the battery it is a simple matter to use the type of connection usually used for 110 volts. Get heavy wire to the battery, wrap it securely around some solid part of the four-wheeler and use a sturdy, industrial type female plug on the four-wheeler. The voltage from the battery is 12 volts, and the electrical contacts are well covered. The male plug which is inserted into it will pull out if the trailer or attachment comes off, if you use strong cord, well connected to the attachment. This arrangement is easy to connect and disconnect, but you must use only motors designed for 12 volt direct current, without regard for polarity (+ and - may be exchanged), which will be the case for motors in sprayers, seeders and so forth sold to be used with ATV’s. (See Image 2)


One of the trailers I have was made for spraying brush. You can buy 30 gallon sprayers at Southern States or Tractor Supply or on the net. They expect you to mount these directly on your vehicle, but it impresses me that it would be very dangerous to go on a hillside with a half empty tank of spray sloshing about that high above the soft springs of the machine. The trailer has a much lower center of gravity and no springs. 30 gallons will last an hour to an hour and a half if the target plants are small and widely separated. Most of my work doesn’t require getting off. When the spray runs out it is a quick trip in to mix another batch. (If you have a lot of surface area together, such as the edge of a forest, or a badly grown up spot that must be treated, a larger, tractor mounted sprayer, 200-300 gallons, is a better bet. But for widely dispersed plants, the ATV is the way to go. It saves all that getting on and off the tractor.)

The spray trailer is designed to also carry two hand sprayers, and a five gallon can of basal spray mix. One hand spray can be filled through the spray hose with the nozzle removed, directly from the 30 gallon tank, for places where I walk because I can’t get to it with the machine. The other is dedicated to basal spray for larger trees. It is mixed up in diesel fuel, which is expensive, but it is much cheaper than trying to cover all the foliage on larger trees. Just follow the instructions and cover the bottom 18 inches of trunk. Very large trees (over 10 inches) will require treatment again the second year. (See Image 3)



I use Primier Poly Sprayer model 21220, 2.0 gal, made by Chapin, purchased at

http://www.chapinmfg.com/PartsAccessories.asp

They are made of polypropyline, so are very tough and do not rust. You can buy parts, including a variety of nozzles with different spray rates. A young husky fellow might want the 3 gallon size, but 2 gallon is enough for me. Chapin is very good about service, even small orders.

One trouble I have had is getting the top off the sprayer I use for the diesel mix for basal spray. A new sprayer each season might correct that, but I hold on for several years. In that time the diesel gets to the polypropylene a bit and makes the tops stick if you put them on enough to prevent air leak. The following photo shows how I get around this. (See Image 4)


The blue strap is tie-down strap, such as you would find at Tractor Supply or a comparable source. It is attached to the trailer bed. The orange strap on the stick is the same material, a different color. Just wrap on carefully and twist. The diesel mix sprayer is painted yellow so it won’t be mixed up with the water sprayer, which is left the original blue-green.


The other trailer is long enough to carry fence posts and tools to set them. Although we drive all posts we can, there are always some on ground too steep and inaccessible to get the tractor to. The little trailer is the same width as the four-wheeler and is ideal for getting materials to these spots. The picture shows a reel for letting out wire the way a commercial “Spinning Jenny” would. This can be made from scrap material. (Use screws driven by an electrical drill for better strength). (See Image 5)


You have to drive slow, to avoid bump things out, in rough places. The tailgate must be secured with a wire or a small bolt. If I was doing it again, I would make higher sides.

Money
(Some philosophical thought)

There are several kinds of money or money equivalence which vary in interconvertability and other characteristics. These relations are something you have to get straight in your mind.

Land is one kind of money. It always has a value (it never disappear like stocks and bonds can), but the value varies with time. Land was at a low when I started to farm in the 1950’s- $20,000 was the price for about any piece of land, large or small. It’s not that way anymore! The price of land goes down with depression, superabundance of farm products (the case when we bought our farm), cheap imported food and so on, and goes up with abundant money, increased population and desire for rural residence (the present situation) and better access because of new roads.

Land is difficult to get anytime, because location, topography, prior use, size of tract and similar characteristics determine the usefulness to the buyer. It is easy to sell (if the buyer can get the necessary financing), in part because there are so many people who benefit from you selling it. Some of these are: the broker (about one-twelfth of your sale price), the banker (who adds one third or more to the buyer’s cost, if he does not have ready cash), the tax man (tax is always greater after land changes hands) and the fellows who supply the inputs to change raw land into a farm. The fellow that buys land is like the fellow in Greek myth that had to carry the weight of the earth on his back, because there are so many people who add to the burden.

It is often wise to let someone else own much of the land you farm and rent what you farm, if you can make an agreement that is favorable and stable. You need some land of your own for a homestead for the farm, a place to keep machines and have some stock and crops so you can use close-up management of these resources. Land ownership is more a goal than a method.

Land also is a place to live that conveys much the same benefits as owing your own house. It conveys status, it is an excellent collateral for loans (because you are highly motivated not to loose it) and it is something you identify with psychologically. It gives space between yourself and neighbors.

Buying and selling land will be considered in more detail elsewhere.

Labor is another kind of money. You can sell your own or buy someone else’s, and you can use it for your own benefit, or your family’s. Many people who farm both sell and buy labor, that is, they work for a wage or salary or have a business, and hire help on the farm. Labor can be traded (trade work with your neighbors), too. And, it can be wasted (by doing the wrong work or by using an opportunity to work for doing something else that does not give equal satisfaction), just like any other form of money. Everyone has a huge supply of their own labor at birth, and it is the only thing many people ever have much of. Managing one’s own labor is the biggest single problem in a free society. Labor must be a major input to farming.

Assets are a third form of money. If you are going to farm you must have fences, cattle and machinery to work with, whether you have land or not. Assets are more mobile than land and may be accumulated more easily, being bought and sold over time. If you make a mistake in other forms of money, this is the area you have to make it up in. If you want to grow larger, this is where you must achieve it. Your assets incease by the birth and growth of your animals, crops and timber. The increase may be maximized by careful management, by supplying inputs such as fertilizer and lime, labor, adequate fences, predator control, brush control and all the rest. And they can wasted away by neglect.

Cash is like oil and grease, it makes the whole thing go easier up or down. You have to have cash to get the goods you need from others, and that’s what you have to supply to compensate for most of your mistakes. But it is not the objective of farming. You hear of people hoarding money, thousands of dollars hidden way. Not good! It can be stolen or lost and you have nothing, and it doesn’t make more money (in the broadest sense) sitting under your mattress. Too much show of cash makes others envious. Having lots of money makes it easier to make bad decisions, because you don’t think much about how it is used.

Good will is not usually interconvertable with other kinds of money, but it has value. Cattle get out, fences need to be kept up, various disputes occur, and the good will of your neighbors is valuable. A farmer has many things he can give away that mean more to his neighbors than to himself. Fire wood, help in emergencies, a little tractor work, or machine loan, hunting, information, even a good story now and then are very valuable in this regard. Respect is something everybody needs, and like love, it is something you get more of when you give it away.

Money isn’t everything. If it is to you, I don’t recommend farming. There are more profitable places to put your money. The biggest cash payoff in farming is to get out of it. The biggest input is the labor of thinking it all out. Far more than labor in the usual sense. Fortunately, you can think and labor at the same time, and there is no better time to think.

Dealing with natural resource extractors

You have multiple use of your land whether you want it or not. The state claims ultimate domain, but aside from that there are a host of others who have an interest in your land and how you farm it. Hunters, people who would like to gather woodland products, such as firewood and edible plants, people concerned with the quality of the water which leaves your land (since they catch some of it for use down stream), people who need right of way, such as electricity, water, and telephone companies, and those interested in extracting natural resources, such as coal, timber, gas and oil.

People in the last group require very careful attention, because they have the capacity to provide considerable income, and also to do considerable damage. The product they remove has great value, they use large machinery, frequently requiring them to borrow a lot of money, which means they are always in a hurry-up mode. They employ people who receive good wages for skilled work, so they have large expenses, too. They are invariably in it for the money, and you have to negotiate details of what they do on your land. Both you and the businessman want to get as much for yourself as possible out of the difference between what he gets for the material extracted and his expense.

The extractor usually has a much larger business than your farm, He deals with land owners frequently, with the resulting advantages in knowledge of applicable law and business practice. Oil and gas drillers, for example, associate with other oil and gas drillers and with lawyers who practice oil and gas law. And they take out leases frequently, so they are familiar with what land owners will try to get. You can usually deal with them on such matters as where a new right of way will go, location and type of fences to be built, size of culverts, and other things related to your farming operation. Large corporations will have specialists in dealing with various personality types among land owners. If one can’t connect with you, they will send another, perhaps tougher, agent.

Companies offer a standard payment, which may be a fraction of the value of the product removed, such as one-eighth royalty, or a price for some unit of measurement, such as a ton of coal. Getting a higher price than the standard is difficult. You may be offered less, so you have to find out what the standard is. In cases where the product is going to produce greater value for the extractor, such as low sulfur coal or thin cover over coal, you may be able to extract a premium, but you really have to study thoroughly, know what you are doing and negotiate well.

With timber it may pay to hire a registered forester. He can “mark” trees to be removed, sparing small trees to regenerate the timber. He can “walk” the tract and make measurements to get a very accurate estimate of the timber will to be removed by cutting the marked trees. He can arrange bids for the sale and oversee the cutting operation to see that the laws are followed on your land. This will cost about 8 or 9% of the sale price, but many think it is worth it, not to have to deal with the timberman, especially on large tracts or high value timber. I sell small amounts of good timber and some low grade timber myself from time to time.

Since you make a sale of this sort infrequently, think, think, think about what is going to happen. Once the contract is written, it is written in stone. Errors and omissions can seldom be corrected. You need to think about where roads will be bulldozed, where spoil will be deposited, where piles of trees will go from well platforms (and what their sale value is, because you are entitled to that, even if the value is too small to market). You need to think about where and what kind of fence you will need during and after extraction. Where will check dams be needed, and where will the rock come from? Is there a spring that needs to be protected? Try to visualize what will happen. Go to sites the extractor has worked on previously. Ask the landowners there what they learned.

You must read the contract very carefully – you are the one ultimately responsible for your interests. Think about what each paragraph does for the lessee. Does he need the thing it gives him? Does it give more than he needs? For example, does the lease specify the geologic formation that is his target? It should not surprise you that the lessee will frequently use wording which gives him formations beyond his immediate objective. An example of this is a coal lease which is sought for a seam near the surface, but which allows the lessee to take ownership or extraction rights for all coal, no matter how deep. In general, minerals become more valuable as time passes, so your heirs can loose out big time. Another hazard is paragraphs concerning liability. You should not put yourself in a position where you become liable for negligence or mistakes of the lessee. The lease should expressly say the lessee assumes responsibility for his accidents. What about damage to your business, such as cows being killed by drinking water from the process, or being killed by the operation? Read it all. Read it several times. With your mind “in gear.”

A lawyer can be of some help, especially if he/she has experience with the industry on large dollar items. A lawyer would be familiar with technical terms, and if familiar with the industry, that is, with common practice in the industry. Remember, though: 1. the lawyer is in it to make money, too, and 2. if he is in the mineral extractive industry it is most profitable for him to mind his interests with the industry. This is not to say a lawyer will routinely try to get you to sign a lease that is not good for you, but he can’t be expected to alienate a segment of his potential clientele. Lawyers are most dangerous in connection with major utilities, and in situations where you have a serious adversarial position with the mineral extractor. If you are trying to sue a utility, you need a lawyer with serious ethical commitment.

You are a land owner, but that is a kind of business, and ultimately you will have to live under the conditions of the contract. Don’t expect someone else to carry your responsibility for you.

When the extractive process is going on, try to remain business like and in contact with the person in charge of the operation. Appearing interested in the process will do more at less expense than any other tactic you can employ. If there is a problem, discuss it, but don’t expect to get expensive changes. Don’t expect to “get tough” – the extractor will doubtless have dealt with many trying that before you. Make notes and take pictures of the action, before and after pictures, and pictures of problems that arise. This is a record, and it is proof of how things were at a certain time.

Dealing is knowledge-based work. You may have to hire help in the form of a lawyer, but remember he is your employee. His function is to give you advice in his area of expertise, not to run your business. Ask for alternatives. Ask "What will happen if I do so and so?" Try to be creative – think of things that others are not thinking about. You are the one to get the profit or loss. Your mineral royalty is much more important to you than it will be to the lessee or the lawyer.

Don’t ever threaten anyone. That is guaranteed to take you downhill in a hurry, with no return. Do what you have to do tactfully, but don’t loose your self-respect and your contact with the other party.

On renting, buying and partnering a farm

Renting or buying a farm is a big deal, one of the most important decisions that a renter or a landowner will make. This article concerns some thoughts on the business aspect of renting and buying. You want a written document that will guide each party in what the other expects, and will secure to each what he has to have to make an economic deal. Both should remember that the other has to have certain things to profit from the exchange, to make it worthwhile.

First, a note on using a lawyer. A lawyer is like an architect, in fact more so, in that you have to tell him what you need (or want). The lawyer knows very little about the farming business. He doesn’t do farming, he has never seen the farm and he doesn’t know the people involved. The farmer is the expert on what has to be done, it’s his life, and he has the responsibility. Don’t depend on a lawyer who doesn’t have training or experience in writing the specialized kind of contract you need. You must take the initiative. Lawyers who know farming are “rare as hen’s teeth” in West Vrginia

Any lawyer can help you avoid falling afoul of the law in adversarial situations, but that is about all. Lawyers all think farming is so simple - there is nothing to writing a farm lease or other document. But they will invariably follow a house or business model for the contract, not a farm model. You need to think about everything you need and be sure it gets in. And like everything else in life, you may still get surprises. Don’t be passive.

Renting is not going to involve big money. The best interest of both parties, renter and landowner, is to keep the place up and avoid adversarial relations with the neighbors. The property that is to be rented must be clearly stated and what the renter can do with it described, and someone designated to be the lessor contact person if a group owns the farm. It should say when the money is due and how much, and the length of time the farm lease is to last (such as ten years, or ten years and as long thereafter as both parties agree).

At this point the lessor’s interest and lessee’s interest diverge. The lessor’s interests include: determination of who will be responsible for damage – if cattle get out, farm assets are damaged, etc. What is the lessee allowed to do? Does it include cutting timber, hunting, fishing, digging mushrooms, ginseng, sassafras and the like? Camping? If brush hogging is required, it should be written in. Likewise fence repair, any required rebuilding of fence, maintenance of roads, etc. that the lessor expects.

The lessee’s interests include: can the lessor drive through the fields at any time? Can the lessor make any use of the facilities? Who is responsible for upkeep? If the lessee must leave, is the cut and stored hay his? Does he have to clean out the barn/s before leaving?

Both parties should have a clear understanding of reasons and procedure to remove a farm tenant. Where housing is not involved, it can be rather simple. If the renter plans to live on the rented farm there is a lot of additional law that becomes applicable because of that. If you keep an eye on the property and notice and act on problems early enough, it helps a lot. Especially if a rented house is involved.

Some things beyond the contract should be ascertained by the lessee before signing. Are there continuing complaints from any neighbor, such as straying animals, odors from farming, excessive dust from a neighbor’s road, a history of children or dogs in the neighborhood intruding, complaints about manure in the waterways and so on? If so, it would be best to look elsewhere. If you have any suspicion, talk around the neighborhood. Don’t rely on the lessor to act against his own interest, even if that would be the moral thing to do! Observe, observe, observe and think, think, think!


The most important part of buying a farm is when. Land varies immensely in price over the decades. In 1962 any farm sold for $20,000, regardless of how large the farm and how fine the house was. Today that wouldn’t buy ten remote acres with a tent on it! Part of the difference is the decline in value of the dollar. It has lost (2008) 18% of its value since 2000, according to the Official United States Inflation Calculator. Part of the low price of land in 1962 was at that there were tremendous farm surpluses. This depressed what you could make from a farm, and consequently what the farm was worth. The population was lower, and industry was booming, too. The lucky ones of us coming of age at that time had the chance of a lifetime. However, $20,000 in 1962 represented as much “real money” (purchasing power) as $140,678 as this is written in 2008 (determined by the Consumer Price Indicator calculator).

The present may or may not be a good time to buy a farm. The currency is very unstable, but the demand for food is rising. Grain looks good, but other countries can produce cattle, which can be imported, so demand for meat is difficult to predict. Land is notoriously high now. Maybe if you have a good income elsewhere and want to invest it, or money to invest, or adjacent land is available, it might be a good risk. At best it won’t disappear completely like so many paper assets (stocks and bonds) did in the “Great Depression” of the thirties. There has been a saying around Central West Virginia for the last two decades or so, “If you want to go into farming, get a car dealership first.” The ordinary farmer should consider renting land, if possible, until he has the assets to operate the new land and put up a hefty down payment.

The second most important part is where. If you already own, and adjacent land comes up for sale and it can be farmed, this might be your chance. Adjacent land is much more valuable. Take it from someoneone who has farmed two tracts 12 miles apart. Adjacent land will reduce fence by the common border, will eliminate the need for travel and transportation of equipment and farm products.
You must have a very good farm on the other end to overcome the cost of much travel.

If you are buying a residence too, the thoughtful person will also be aware of the cost of too much distance from stores, utilities, school bus routes and also church, if so inclined. The quality of the land should be of obvious importance in buying a tract to be farmed.

If you are buying or selling to a family member or someone you trust, consider a “land contract.” When you buy something that will take a long time to pay for, the interest will be one third to one half as much as the principal. If the buyer doesn’t need all the money immediately, he can finance it for you. This arrangement cuts out the middleman who makes the loan, because the seller receives the interest. You should be able to negotiate a lower rate from the seller than a standard lending agency. You will need to talk to someone familiar with this practice and will want to work with a lawyer.



The written agreement between the four parties (including the two wives) when we purchased the our farm was written by a Harvard Law graduate, and was so inadequate one manager of Farm Credit was on the verge of denying us credit until we got something better. The agreement made no provision for the responsibility of the parties. My partner never did any work, and almost nothing to compensate. I made two or three trips to State College, PA, home of Penn State, to get something this Farm Credit manager was happy with. (They have expertise in doing work for serious farmers at Penn State.) I told the Penn State lawyer straight out what the situation was. He dallied and I dallied and finally the manager moved elsewhere and the whole thing fell through. I don’t know if my partner would ever have agreed to it. A partnership contract is difficult, of course, because duties would have to be defined if written properly. There’s nothing worse than a non-performing partner. I know, I’ve been there. Make a dime, share a nickel, loose a dime, make it back by yourself!

A partnership agreement should include the following, at least: What the duties of each person would be, how decisions will be made, what the labor, money, machine, land, etc., input from each partner will be, how earnings will be divided and when (monthly, annually), and how expansion will be handled, or reduction, and termination. Also, if there is housing involved, who will live in each dwelling, who will be responsible for upkeep and repairs additions and such.

There should be formal statement of how records will be kept, both of finances and farm operations. This could be considerable on farms keeping livestock. How will demands such as divorce and disability be handled? These do happen, and they can destroy all the partners.

It takes a certain amount of “guts” and diplomacy to do this. You have to be objective, though, to avoid hard feelings later on and to assure continuity. You must be objective, It’s better to be prepared.

Fence Building

There is but one fence and electrified high tensile is its name! There is a certain technology you have to follow, but there is considerable latitude also. A three wire high tensile fence is legal (in West Virginia), if properly built. Posts may be set 75 feet or more apart, but must be close enough to follow the contour of the ground. It is quite adequate to keep bulls and cows in heat separated, the only fence that will do so. However, cattle can be stampeded through it, and new born calves will fumble through, apparently they do not understand the wire is the cause of their pain.

Let’s discuss how it works in general terms. The controller loads a capacitor with electricity, this is allowed to run into the fence for about three thousandths of a second. If anything is in contact with the fence and the ground it will get shocked at this point. After the very brief period the fence is unloaded, that is, the charge is allowed to drain away into the ground. This will repeat in about three-fourths of a second. The electrical quantity that causes pain is the energy that passes from the fence wire to the ground through the animal (or unfortunate person), not the voltage. Energy is measured in joules (pronounced the way West Virginians pronounce “jewels” - jewlz).

The capacitor mentioned previously determines how much energy the charger will hold. Typical values are 8 to 15 joules for a 110 volt charger. The charge is limited by the capacitor in the charger. This is safe, that much electrical shock will not damage your body. My daughter worked in the Cardiac Care unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital, so I asked her what charge was used to restart a person’s heart. She told me 450 joules. So there seems to be a considerable margin for safety. I don’t recommend touching an electric fence while standing barefoot in a stream, of course. A charge from considerably less than fifteen joules is an emotional experience that will be remembered for a long time, I can assure you! The idea is for the fence to cause pain, so the animal will avoid it. You don’t want to hurt people or hurt or damage animals.

Several things affect the amount of energy that a charger actually supplies to the animal. One is the quality of the insulation. The polyethylene and ceramic insulators available are excellent, in effect allowing no charge to leak off. Another is loading by grass or brush. This is often significant, and so one should place the lowest wire17 (or a little more) inches off the ground for cattle, unless there is some special reason. This height would be a joke for barbed wire, the cattle would lift it with their heads and go right under. Keeping the bottom wire up is one of the hardest things for someone used to building barbed wire fences has to learn. I know, it took me two decades! This height also encourages cattle to eat the grass under the fence, an important consideration. You don’t want to supply the labor to trim it out if the animals will do it. If the wire touches the ground, or a metal post, serious leaks will occur.

Your “fence tester” reads in kv (kilovolts), because it is difficult to measure joules, and once the charge is in the fence, the energy (or pain) delivered in a short circuit (you or the animal) is about proportional to the voltage. The animal stands in “bare feet” on the ground. I’ve never seen the ground so dry that they challenge electric fence, but I understand this is a problem in the arid West. You wear shoes or boots, which are good insulators, so you only get full energy when you are on a knee or sitting on the ground. If you wear lined leather gloves of the sort ordinarily used in winter you can handle all but a very hot fence with your hands.

I never use metal posts – wood for permanent and fiberglass for temporary, corners are larger posts set in concrete with no braces. Or drive six-inch posts on firm ground. More than three wires are best for approaches to pens where you work cattle, where you plan to wean feeder calves, and along the road where cows may be with very young calves. In these areas we use six wires, posts at about twelve feet, and in some areas “stiffners,” the “T” shaped fiberglass rods with notches, halfway between posts. Make your own “clips” from short pieces of wire left over from fences. The ones you purchase do not last very long. Cows will try to keep their baby calves away from 2 or 3 wire electric fence, but once in a while they will get through. It is best to build a more secure fence (six wirres) if you plan to have new born calves along the road. When they escape in other directions they will come back through the hot fence. Only a small fraction ever get through, and even those learn very quickly. Occasionally one will get stuck on the wrong side, so look for them when you feed.

If you buy animals that are not used to an electric fence, you have to train them. Put them in a lot that is secure, and put an electric fence across it. A temporary string fence is OK. Feed on one side and put the new animals on that side. They will learn what electricity is, and will approach all fences more gingerly. If a few get through, let them remain on the second side while you feed on the first side. Let them get hungry and try it again. The way a bovine checks the fence is by touching it with its nose, the most sensitive part of its body. An animal which is familiar with electric fence will be easier to control with other kinds of fence, too.

You need 2 to 2.5 kv on the fence to control animals. More is better. This is a fair jolt for you, too, but your shoes help insulate. Use 4.0 kv or better to train. Once they are trained, they do not challenge a fence for weeks, and if you have a gate that uses wires and hooks, they can be hard to get through the gate when you want to move them. The tube gates that are widely used work much better for getting animals from one field to another.

Internal fences on our place are all two wire, the second one mainly for a safety factor. Fences through a woods are not put directly on trees, because trees grow over the insulators or pull nails through the polyethylene insulators and let the wires drop. We use treated 2x4 “ insulator boards” to space the wires like they are on posts, and spike them to the trees through holes cut in the board the size of the spikes drilled through the 2x4’s. (Use junk trees, because the tree must be cut above the top nail for timber.) Do not drive the spikes all the way in, leave an inch or so for tree growth. These “insulator boards” are made at the house of scrap treated lumber on rainy days, and kept for use when needed.

We use barbed wire only in places too isolated to reach with electric fence. The back side of our farm is a strip mine high wall, and we need a few roads fenced where the miners left a road to the isolated hill top. We do not use high tensile, non-electrified fence, due to the necessity of keeping it very tight. For sorting pens we use high woven wire with posts at ten to twelve foot intervals. Electrified fence is not suitable for crowding animals. Even if it is made tight enough so they can’t force their way through, the electrical shocks would make them too wild to handle. We also use woven wire on the road side of the field where calves spend the first two weeks.

Temporary fence can be made with “Polywire” string and fiberglass rods for posts. The Polywire is polypropylene (the plastic used for ropes) with several strands of stainless steel woven in to cary electricity. I always use two strands. The conductivity is not as good as the standard wire, so you have a limit as to how long a fence can be made with it and still be effective. I can’t advise on this distance, because it depends on the charge on the fence you attach it to.

Two uses we have made of temporary fence are to isolate the bales in one corner of the meadow while pasturing it and second to funnel animals into an alleyway. Longer temporary fence can be made with fine gage wire. Either can be wound up effectively on the plastic reels sold to wind longer extension cords on.

To be secure when animals are under stress, such as a sorting lot, the best choice is woven wire. I believe the final pen before a cattle chute for working or loading should be made from two inch lumber and be high enough to prevent cattle from jumping over. Five feet four inches will hold all but the most wild animals. The posts should be ten feet apart or less for four board 2x 8 fences in such a lot.

Gates for sloping ground can be a problem. You want to set posts vertically, but the gate, if it is square, does not adapt to the slope of the hill. You can get around this by making a gate yourself, using hardwood, preferably white oak since it has the best rot resistance. Use a single 3/8 or 7/16 bolt in each end of the horizontal board and don’t tighten the bolts up to the point they prevent the end of the gate from being lifted. Set the post the gate is to be hinged to first, and tie to it loosely with wire or good rope. Then set the other posts the outer end will have to contact. This is necessary because the width of the gate will change as the outer end goes up or down. This isn’t beautiful, but it works. In situations like this you need to put (very small) gravel in the walkway, because it will erode badly when cattle go through it in wet weather.

Movement of Water Above Ground

Every watercourse carries both water and sediment.

Practical

My son, who has a Masters in Geology, says a professor told his class it is not worthwhile to try to influence movement of water by bank stabilization, dams, etc. This may be true in the sweep of geological time, but it is not true in the time span of our life. We can make improvements that earn enough more to pay for themselves and benefit us in just a few years. Some of the things you can do above ground (when allowed by law) follow.

The only practical way to preserve a bank where there is cutting on a high gradient intermittent stream is to place stones too big to be moved by the highest flow. We are fortunate to have rocks available on our farm, but it is a hassle to move them from the strip job to streams. I have carried them down when I return from feeding, taking weeks to complete a job, one rock a day.

The creek is, by law, owned by the State of West Virginia, as are all “navigable streams.” This is interpreted as any stream that is not intermittent (does not dry up). Navigable streams are nominally under control of the Army Corps of Engineers. This goes back in common law to a time before the U. S. was a country. The king owned the streams in England. When the American Revolutionary War occurred his ownership fell to the government of Virginia, and when West Virginia broke away, it got the stream ownership. You control the access to it only, but this allows you to keep trespassers out, including fishermen and gas companies who want to pump into their tank trucks or dump out of them.

Presently we have a stream bank erosion plan registered with the U. S. Corps of Engineers and the Soil Conservation folks. You cannot have a (formal, by law) stream crossing without their consent, but we are likely the only farm on Jesse Run (10+ square mile watershed) which does. Other businesses must have one, too, such as a gas company. Materials are not to be filled in or removed from a stream or wetland. Legal use of creek gravel is a thing of the past.

At one time Soil Conservation Service was into straightening streams in a big way, 50 and more years ago. The big stream across from our house had been straightened and put against the south wall of the valley not too long before we came to Jesse Run. John Kolb’s creek (the farm adjacent to ours) had the one big bend cut off, too. If you study the fields, you can find several courses water took in the past. The stream up by the coal road had been straightened, as has the one nearest our house.

There has been an effort to keep cattle from going into steams by conservation interests, because they degrade the banks, and muddy the water. Streams are a great place for cattle to get water, though. What they want you to do is to build watering troughs and fence cattle away from steams. That may be possible for main streams, but not feasible for intermittent streams such as the three that flow south through our property into Jesse Run.

These smaller streams will have a number of crossings. Check dams below the crossings will help to stabilize them, and you may have to maintain a few additional check dams made of rocks, to stabilize these streams. Keep one point along the top of check dams below he surroundings, and let the edges come up to or slightly above the steam bank. Slope the downstream side and/or allow impact of the stream at high flow to hit rocks so the check dam will not be undercut. Go for several small ones, rather than few large ones. Watch and maintain them – usually little is needed.

Where cattle run through heavily used lots you can use rocks in another way. Cattle don’t like to walk on rocks, so you can put large rocks along the streams to control where they walk. The lot where we keep heifers has a stream quite close and parallel to a fence. We place rocks about a foot or so in two dimensions between the fence and the steam to keep them from mashing in the bank between the stream and the fence.

Try using a few piles they won’t want to walk over (one rock thick) every fifteen feet or so perpendicular to the fence and the stream, just so they won’t walk along the fence. If this doesn’t stabilize the banks in some places, you may have to fill piles at shorter intervals.

Particular attention will have to be paid in some areas. We have a stream behind a concrete block well house in the middle hollow, because it is in a very high traffic area. Loss of the block building would ruin a very expensive watering system, which is quite important in a dry year. If it starts to wash, we will build up the watercourse with large rocks so the wall remains intact. The entire channel can be lined with rocks, which is called rip-rap, and you may have to do that in such a location.

If you build a culvert, stabilize the down stream side by using rock or some other method. You don’t need to stabilize the upstream side unless it is quite high. Water piles up against it in times of high water but has little effect. If water flows over the culvert, however, it washes out the fill on the lower side where it splashes over the steep slope, and can make the culvert impassable.

There is a sedimentation basin in one of our small streams near the creek. This is to catch the considerable amount of sediment that comes from the hill. It needs to be cleaned out and the sediment transported every second year or so. We should also have one in the other small south-flowing streams, but there would be some considerable expense in cleaning them and transporting the sediment to some appropriate place. Sedimentation basins should be fenced off to keep the cattle out of them.

Drainage of storm water in small areas is best accomplished by a grassed waterway. The idea is to maintain a broad shallow area that is well grassed over. The grass will contribute to removal of suspended matter, mostly clay and organic debris, from the drainage area above it.

However, if a continuous stream runs for days, several times a year, a channel will develop. This can further develop into a gully if not controlled. Trees along the stream are the easiest control measure. Usually you find them in place. Just don’t remove them. If it is necessary to establish them, Sycamores are a good choice. Willow is easy to establish, just make cuttings three feet long abut the size of your thumb and stick them in place several inches down where they can get plenty of water. I don’t like willows as well as sycamores because they are more difficult to control and the wood is never of any value. Sycamores can be cut and the roots will sprout up again.

Farm roads are a largely ignored area of erosion. Crushed rock is the only real answer. Sometimes you can pick up small rock in your fields, helping both the place where the rock comes from and the place you put it on the road. Water must not be allowed to flow down the road. It washes away the rock and makes gullies. The answer is breakers. Get a technician to help with this. The grade of the breaker and distance apart depend on the grade of the road, and what area drains into the road. The breakers should drain onto established grassland, preferably not too steep. Expect the sediment from the breaker to build up a hump where the breaker ends. Sometimes this becomes too large to allow proper drainage, over a period of decades. In this case the hump must be removed or a ditch maintained through it.

The lower side of a breaker requires special attention, especially if the road is used frequently. If you use the bulldozer to maintain it, and there is plenty of rock, you can push up a lower side of rock. If you don’t have the opportunity to do this put some rock in place, cover it with plenty of dirt and add more rock, building up until you have a pile of rock and dirt well mixed large enough so that it will be high enough to control the flow when it settles. The dirt is necessary to seal the water into the breaker and to keep the rock in place. The rock is necessary to prevent wheel tracks from draining water through the breaker.

The objectives always are (1) to slow the movement of water, (2) to hold the sediment in place, and (3) to prevent gullies and minimize loss of top soil and fertility.

You don’t have to speed up the runoff of water. It can find its own way down hill very well, thank you! When it does speed up, it takes solids with it, and you have erosion.


Descriptive

Streams of intermediate gradient, such as one sees away from the mountains, are a series of pools, each empting into the next. These pools are formed in relatively erodable material, clay or loam, with some smaller rock. The lower end of the pool is blocked by coarser material and the water flows rapidly down a shallow course over riffles into the next pool. This coarser material is sometimes brought into the main stream at the riffles by a smaller side stream with higher gradient (slope) and sometimes it is deposited by a change in direction of the stream. Bars and riffles are constantly changing shape, in large part due to rocks moving down stream. Rock size is an indicator of how fast the water flows over the riffle. Bigger rocks in a deposit mean faster water, because the smaller ones have washed on down stream.


In central West Virgnia all our small streams are high gradient for their size, and are inherently unstable. Over a period of geological time (a very long time) the stream has flowed everywhere between the valley walls – that movement defines where the valley is. Changes in the position of streams come very rapidly, and may seriously disrupt your fields, leaving places you cannot get to, or small irregular fields. In the mountains, where there is a high gradient and sufficient water supply, streams may have a rocky bottom even at normal rates of flow. The sediment in streams, and the deposits along streams may include larger, rounded rocks which have moved some distance. They become rounded by bumping into each other, generating smaller pieces. This rounding down process ends with sand. Sand particles are of such size that in water surface tension of the wetted surface acts as a bumper to form a limit beyond which the size of the particle can not be reduced by bumping. (Very fine grained sand is formed by wind in deserts). Smaller particles in streams are formed by chemical action only.


A basic principle is that in going from a higher level to a lower one, water must dissipate energy. The amount is directly proportional to mass of water moving and distance it drops vertically from one point to another along the stream. At normal flow this is little, but in flood stage it is immense. The stream dissipates this energy by extending its length. It does this by developing meanders (bends). It also dissipates energy by warming the water, but so little you can’t measure it. Loss of energy also happens when the water goes over a falls or riffles, and when it rubs on the banks and bottom or hits other obstructions.

For emphasis, let me repeat, a stream is not uniform in cross section, and does not have uniform grade from higher to lower levels. Considered in the vertical dimension, it is a series of pools, deep quiet spots with riffles between. These riffles are often locaterd where rocky sediment is washed into the main stream by side streams, but appear elsewhere, too. Also, looking down from above, the pools at high flow are not identical with the pools at low flow, riffles having less effect at high flow. Any cross section varies when the water becomes deeper with higher flow.

Changes in the course of streams come at high flow. Double the speed of the flow and the size of rocks that it can move increases by the fourth power (x = awE4 where x is the rate of flow of the steam in any convenient units, such as feet per second, w is the mass (or weight) of the rock and a is a constant relating the units of flow and mass). This relation between rate of flow and mass of the rock that can be moved is one of the highest power laws in nature. The rocks moving at the bottom of the stream abrade (sandpaper) the sides and bottom of the stream. The rocks are more dense than the water (rocks are typically 2.8 times as dense as water), and so are more affected by force of movement (inertia) than water.

Any place water gets up over the land at high water, deposition takes place. If the water is slow and shallow, deposition is slight, and the particles are fine. The presence of grass or tree growth helps deposit solids, because it slows the flow and catches debris. If the water is a foot or two deep, deposition can take place rapidly. I have noticed a lot of sand deposited in some places where it must have been suspended two feet above the low flow level. Notice the elevation of the banks of a stream. I take this to be the equilibrium condition between erosion by the stream propelled sediment on the bottom and the deposition by high water on the surrounding land. Much of the finest sediment, however, goes all the way to the ocean, where the salt water causes it to loose its ability to stay suspended. Deltas (like the Mississippi delta) form where salt causes the suspended small particles to fall out.

If you observe carefully at normal flow, you notice that the outside of a steam curve (the side the stream is thrown against, the cutting side) is vertical, and the other side is slanting from the field level down toward the outside. The outside is being cut away at high flow. Vegetation is an effective barrier to cutting, if it extends to and below the bottom of a steam. Trees are the most important controllable influence on movement of banks. Keep the banks relatively clean, let trees grow where you want the bank to hold, cut them out where you want the bank to be removed. The catch to this last is that the roots do the holding, and they last for years before they rot away, so you have to anticipate, and not let trees get big where you don’t want them. You have to watch the stream banks and cut trees when necessary. It’s an art, not a science. Due to the present environmental-political understanding, it’s best not to cut a lot at a time, especially big, conspicuous trees. The environmental-political group don’t care if the stream changes course and ruins you bottom!

Movement of water below ground

Every watercourse carries both water and sediment.

Most people understand the flow of water underground poorly. The common idea is that water flows in “streams.” When you dig shallow ditches you do observe water flow (if the weather has been sufficiently wet) through crab holes and the like. This is not the major mechanism of movement of water under ground, however.

Imagine a bank of sand along a stream. Water can flow through it moving in the pores between sand grains. These are tiny holes left because the sand grains are irregular in shape. If each was shaped like a brick or a child’s toy block, all the space could be filled in and very little flow permitted. The irregular shapes between sand grains do not completely fill the space, so water is permitted to flow. This is the way water flows down into soil and in some kinds of rock.

Most of the underground water in Central West Virginia (and elsewhere) resides in sandstone (as does the oil and gas). Geologists can measure the porosity of rocks which gives some indication of the space available and the speed liquids can flow through them. Soil is also porous, although not as much as some sandstone. Some rocks are not porous, such as coal and soapstone.

When it rains, water that doesn’t run off seeps down into the soil through pores, some spaces between soil particles, some through earthworm holes, some through spaces caused by plants. It sinks down to some impervious layer, perhaps clay, and there moves laterally (sidewise) through the soil. The process is slow, but it operates through the entire surface. In some places water accumulates due to presence of clay in the soil, and must be drained. Drains must be buried at about 2% grade with no low spots to drain properly. If the work to place drains is not carefully done, the sediment carried by water in drains accumulates in low spots and blocks the drains. Proper design allows for high water in the stream where the outlet is located. The outlet should be far enough above stream level so that there is plenty of time the stream is below the bottom of the outlet. Otherwise the sediment accumulates in the drain. The outlet should be a foot or so above stream level at normal flow. More is better. Anticipate changes in stream level as a result of the processes described in the article “Movement of water above ground.”

An aquifer is a strata of rock which has enough porosity to hold water and allow it to flow into a well bore rapidly enough to be useful. Most aquifers in Central West Virginia are sandstones. To the East there are limestone strata that have enough cracks to allow water to flow in useful amounts.

Water can be pumped readily from the borehole. But the volume of water in the borehole will allow pumping only a brief time. If more than a few gallon is needed, water must be resupplied from the porous rock aquifer. The combination of thickness of the aquifer and porosity determines how rapidly the well will be supplied.

The well may be drilled through a succession of porous and non-porous strata (layers), each aquifer contributing to the production of the well. Aquifers are sometimes held up by some impervious strata, like coal. These are said to be said to be “perched” on the impervious strata. Rarely, drilling through the impervious layer allows the aquifer to drain into an empty porous layer, draining the aquifer.

Some aquifers lie between impervious strata and are replenished from rain percolating down from the soil at some distance from the well at a higher elevation. Drilling into these produces an artesian well. Generally speaking, a well must be in an aquifer thick enough and porous enough to contain a supply of water that will allow the pump to run for several minutes, preferably longer. Often there are several aquifers in an area, in which case the driller should not stop at the first one. The moral of the story is not to stop drilling at the first trickle of water to save yourself money. In some areas, like ours on Jesse Run, go too deep and you get salt water, however. If you have a gas storage field in your area you can expect some of the gas to work its way up through pores toward the surface, away from the pressurized layers to flavor the water. In one of the wells on our farm, gas accumulates above the water, is ignited occasionally by a spark that blows the aluminum well cap off. We know this is the reason, because of the black carbon deposit where the gas-rich mixture explodes.

Aquifers may be thought of as having a lens shape. Not round looking down from above (if you could see through the earth) like a glass lens, nor with a smooth top and bottom, but pinching off in thickness from top to bottom as you move away from the thickest part. When you drill the water well, there is no way to tell where the lens shape of the aquifer is, or how thick it is, in order to best locate the well. The oil and gas people have a way to do this (they only kinda know) looking for their much more valuable target, but such methods are too expensive for water wells. Details of what they do need not concern us here.

The position of the “lens” is unknown and it's shape It can not be found by technology in drilling for small water wells. It bares no relation to surface features with one exception. Very shallow wells may be resupplied by steams in the vicinity. Even when the surface is dry, water continues to follow the unconsolidated material (soil and small gravel) below the surface along streams. If you are a farmer looking to drill a well for a dry time, or a homeowner who doesn’t want to run out of water ever, drilling a well on a hill is a poor choice. The strata tend to drain out in a dry time through the side of the hill into the valley. If you have to drill on a hill, go deep enough to get your water supply below steam level, a few tens of feet.

When you draw water out of the well, the first thing that happens is the water in the bore hole drops. This allows more water from the area of pores around the well to flow toward the hole, refilling it. Then water from further out flows in the newly empty pores, and further out pores resupply those pores. Think about this: When you pump water out of a barrel the water level of the whole barrel goes down, because there is no resistance to the flow of the water. When you pump water out of a hole in a porous strata there is resistance, and so slow flow. The further away from the well the more resistance to flow. Instead of the surface coming down uniformly, like in the barrel, the water nearest the well in the strata comes down most, and further away less. This forms a “cone of depression” in the surface of the water around the well, in the aquifer. If the well is resupplied from above, it is not a good idea to have a shallow well near your septic system, although many people get away with it. The problem is not so much bacteria, but chemicals with molecules nearly as small as water molecules from detergents, cleaners, medicines, etc. that go down the drain. If the water is deep, there is less likelihood of surface water contaminating the resupply.

“Water witching” is an activity that goes back to the time of witches. Although many people “believe” in it, no one has ever been able to prove objectively, that it has any better likelihood of success than pure chance. Drill your well where it is convenient. You are just as likely to hit a lens big enough to meet your needs for a farm or home if you go down until your well is sufficiently deep.

Springs in Central West Virginia (and elsewhere) are most frequently found in the side of a hill or not far from a hill or raised area. They are simply an outlet from an aquifer that can drain, in other words, is above the stream in the valley, and not contained by low porosity rock.. Occasionally they are the result of an artesian aquifer, but not often. If you drill a well in the aquifer above a spring it is likely to reduce the water in the spring.

Fracturing a gas or oil well or blasting by a strip mine or construction job can destroy a well or spring, by making a fracture that lets the aquifer drain below the level of the spring or bottom of the well. If gas or oil well or blasting by a strip mine happens in your neighborhood, it is a good idea to have the production of your well or spring verified in such a way that it can be used in court. In fact it is the law for strip mines to do this. But do it before the work takes place. Afterwards is too late. Consult your friendly lawyer. The company can be expected to fight your claim tooth and nail.