How The Boers Measured Land

How the Boers Measured Land.

  It is not to be imagined that these farms of the Boers are in any way comparable to what we understand in the ordinary application of the term. They are simply huge tracts of country, containing six thousand acres with nothing but a small beacon of piled up stones at certain points to Mark the line of boundary. In proportion to the amount of land held by each proprietor there is a very small piece under cultivation - at the most ten or twelve acres, and, in the majority of cases, two or three, or none at all. The original method of measuring of these "runs"' was somewhat primitive. Starting from the last-made beacon, a Boer would ride in a straight line for half an hour as fest as his horse could carry him, then halt, erect a bacon, and again ride away for half an hour, in a direction at right angles to his first ride, and erect another. The rectangle made by these two lines of ride would contain his farm, so that by this method the Boer who had the fleetest horse obtained the largest tract of land. Within the last few years science, however, has been brought to bear on the subject, and farms are now measured by the theodolite. The introduction of this instrument has caused a great many disputes of farms the boundaries of which were believed to be perfectly defined were discovered to one another to a serious extent, and as this is the case all through the country, the land surveyors ave having a pretty good time of it.