THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 151 



feet high as far as the bowlders, which are two feet in diameter, 

 will extend ; and then, if a lot of bowlders are but twenty inches 

 in diameter, let the wall be laid a few inches higher, so that the 

 tops of all the bowlders will be of a given height. It is a very 

 great help, in putting on these cope stones, to lay two strips of 

 boards, about three inches wide, and the longer the better, on the 

 top of the wall, with their edges even with the faces of the wall, 

 and then lay on the cope stones, letting them rest on these strips 

 of boards. A board or plank as wide as the top of the wall is 

 often laid on the top for the cope stones to rest on; but two strips 

 of boards, I think, are preferable, because they are cheaper, and 

 they do not require so much chocking on the sides, and any cor 

 ners or points of the stones will set down between these strips much 

 better than they would rest on a wide plank. 



What has been penned in the preceding paragraphs has partic 

 ular reference to walls which are made of all kinds of stone. "We 

 shall now notice the best mode of building 



COBBLE-STONE FENCE. 



191. When stone fences are made of small stones only, where 

 there are no flat stones to bind the wall together, small strips of 

 wood, called binders, about an inch wide and one-fourth of an 

 inch thick, which are usually split out of cedar or some other 

 durable wood, are laid between all the courses of stone as thickly 

 as thought proper ; but one binder extending entirely across the 

 wall to every six or twelve inches will be sufficient. If the 

 stones are all quite small, it would be well to use more binders 

 than if the stones were larger. The stones will settle a little into 

 these wooden binders, and keep the sides from bulging out and 

 falling down. The binders should not extend beyond the face of 

 the wall far enough to allow cattle to move them ; they should 

 be cut of different lengths, when the wall batters on both faces, 

 so as to be just as long as the wall is wide, as the wall increases 

 in height. When any of the binders extend beyond the face of 

 the wall, the ends should be sawed off even with the stones. 

 7 



