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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> I found that despite using  
> cedar and various oak, posts eventually rotted. So now, except for  
> gate posts, I use only metal T-posts. They go in easy. They don't rot.  
> And they can easily be reused.
> 

I adore metal T-Posts.  They are cheap (6' post here abut $2 in bulk, and I 
mean the extruded ones, not the miserable ones made from bent sheet metal), 
easy to install, easy to extract, can be used for barbed wire, field fencing, 
or 
electric fence.

We use a lot of them.

But wooden fence posts aren't that much bother.  We have abundant locust 
here.  A locust post from the north side of a hill will last 15 years in the 
ground.  Many of the wooden posts are oak, hickory, cedar and walnut.  They 
don't 
last quite as long, as little as two or three years.  But it's very little 
work 
to clean out the old hole and replace a few posts all along. 

"All along" being the operant phrase here.  When we are cutting firewood, 
good posts are set aside and kept under cover to dry.  When a post shows 
deterioration, we pop the staples loose, remove the post, clean out the hole, 
and put 
in a new one.  Half an hour maybe,  as little as 15 minutes.  Again it's a 
matter of anticipation.  You wouldn't want to get up one morning and put in 
300 
feet of fence by cutting the trees and digging the holes.  You can put in 300 
feet of metal T-posts in a day easily, but the need to do so is only if you 
are 
in farm panic mode.  'Git 'er done'.     </HTML>