44 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY 



STONE WALLS. 



Stone walls and rail fences are the great fences of the country. 

 The latter require very much less skill to build in an enduring 

 manner than the former, and their proper construction is very 

 much easier. In any country where they are much used, they 

 are generally well made, and the different forms of " worm," 

 "post and rail," " stake and rider," etc., are too well understood 

 to need more than a passing notice in a hand-book. 



The stone wall, however, — when well made the best of all 

 fences, — is generally built in the most unpractical and uneconomi- 

 cal way possible. Probably the majority of the stone fences in 

 New England commenced their career as a tier of boulders and 

 irregular stones set one above the other, on the surface of the 

 ground, and kept in position by a very nice adjustment of their 

 centers of gravity; and such of them as were without yearly care 

 have ended it as long heaps of rubbish, covered with brambles and 

 elder bushes, — a sort of spontaneous hedge with a stone founda- 

 tion, flanked by thistles, cockles, iron weed, and golden rod ; — 

 possessing all the disadvantages and performing few of the offices 

 of a fence. 



A poor stone wall is the worst fence that can be imagined. It 

 is thrown down by every winter's frost, and must be repaired, — 

 not merely every year, but, worst of all, every springy after the 

 frost is all out of the ground, and when spring work is pressing. 



A good stone wall, with a broad base, a sure foundation, plenty 

 of lock-stones, and well capped, is expensive to make, but when 

 made it is made for a life-time. No unruly animal can break it 

 down, no frost can " heave " it, and it need never be touched 

 from one end of the year to the other. 



The two great requisites are, a solid and dry foundation and 

 proper construction. More than in the case of almost any thing 

 else there is a good and a bad way to do the work. Two walls 

 may be built with the same stones, on the same ground, and at 

 the same expense, and one be good and the other good for 

 nothina;. 



