Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fence Posts.

I've seen locust posts sprout and start growing.

It is a big family... figs and breadfruit in there too.

My Grandpa and his brother had a quarry where they would cut the limestone posts. He told me they used mules instead of horses as mules were able to pull more. My mom said she remembers playing with Grandpa's quarrying tools when she was little. Mostly feather and wedge. Wish I had those tools.

G23

Just wow. I suspected, when I read limestone posts, that you were referring to rock cribs. I have never heard of a solid stone post before.

I wonder how well they hold a staple?

I see no holes in the wood from locust borers. Our trees are heavily infested with such. How do you prevent them.

We don't need no stinkin' fenceposts, said the Irish.

Yeah, but by the time they got the rocks out they did not have enough dirt left to grow a potato!

I have not seen a infestation here in southwest Wisconsin.

That is interesting, I wonder if our issue is due to our desert climate.

This part of the country was settled from about 1900 through the 1940s as the irrigation systems were constructed. Most of the farmsteads included an 1/8 mile to 1/4 mile of black locust planted into a row for future harvest as fence posts. Those groves thrived up through the 80s.

Since that time the locust borers have girded the large trees and perforated the limbs of new growth so badly that each wind breaks out many of those young limbs.

The insect infestations combined with younger generations who do not recognize the locust's value for fencing materials. Probably more accurately the loss of small family farms with small herds of milk cows, has led to almost a complete elimination of local locust groves.

I miss the lovely sweet scent and beautiful flowers of the blooming locusts each spring.

They were Africa before Africa was cool!

If all the stones came out of the fields, no wonder they couldn't grow taters.

I’ve spent a lot of days cutting fence posts, mainly cedar but quite a bit of locust as well. Last few years I had to deal with fences, however, it was just walk around with a couple of Amish boys and tell them where we wanted fence, where we wanted gate. Faster, cheaper and better than my brother and I would ever get it done.

Don't remember seeing any black locust around here, we've got too many honey locusts though. The thorns on those things will teach you to watch where you're going in the woods.
Somebody said something about locust sprouting in the post hole, Grandpa said that's how hedge/osage orange got started around here. They shipped in hedge from texas and some of the green posts sprouted. It and the cedars have taken over many of the pastures in this area.

Wonder if they have a little Dutch girl in Ireland saying global warming causes the rock walls to grow and the dirt to sink....