Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/134

 and willow hedges were resorted to and when the prairie farmers became the majority, they caused the laws to be changed so that such fences were made lawful by a vote of the people in the counties where the prairie farmers were strong enough to control the elections. For several years these contests over “hog tight” fences were waged with varying results and no little bitterness. As railroads were built and pine lumber from the forest regions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan became accessible, the three rail or three board fences were made legal in most of the counties. Even then the great expense of opening a farm was the fencing and it was a burdensome tax on farmers of limited means who made up the majority of the settlers. Smooth wire was tried but made insecure fences.

The inventive genius of the people was stimulated to devise cheap fencing. Several individuals in different parts of the west began to experiment with constructing various kinds of barbs to be attached to the wire to prevent animals from working through the fences. A blacksmith and farmer in Scott County, by the name of Samuel Freeman, built a wire fence on his farm near Hickory Grove in 1859, and was troubled with cattle getting through between the wires. In 1861 his son, Pembroke E. Freeman, devised a barb which he applied to the wire. This proved effective in stopping the cattle and was doubtless the first application of barbed wire to fences. No effort was made by Freeman to have his invention patented but the fence was well known to his neighbors and attracted attention from many farmers in the county. In 1867 a Mr. Hunt devised a spur wheel to be attached to wire acting as a barb to prevent cattle from getting through the fence. He secured a patent for his device but it never came into use. A Mr. Glidden invented a wire barb to be attached to fence wire in 1876, had it patented and quite an amount of barbed wire was manufactured under this patent. Other inventors were at