(*)
This stuff was deliberately destroyed by groups known as The Owls and Blue Devils.  A mass-produced sculpture by E. M. Viquesney sometimes known as "Iron Mike" shows the title figure walking over a tree stump that is surrounded with this substance.  This invention was repurposed to create squirrel lines, a type of ad-hoc telephone network.  Joseph (*) Glidden popularized this invention, which largely replaced the use of osage orange hedges and was necessary due to the lack of available stone and lumber.  This invention is celebrated at Texas' Devil's Rope Museum.  The use of this invention sparked the "range wars", where cattle-herders cut-up this stuff which had been erected by farmers.  Nests of this stuff were placed in no-man's land in World War I.  For 10 points, name this invention that allowed for cheap fences in the Great Plains.
This stuff was deliberately destroyed by groups known as The Owls and Blue Devils.  
barbed wire fences [or razor wire or bobbed wire; accept devil's rope before mentioned] Â 