fm NEW ENGLAND FENCES 



remains of an old log; or you may catch glimpses 

 of a brown wood wren silently exploring the maze 

 of prostrate branches. These are the fence viewers 

 of the woodlot. 



To build or pile a brush fence, such small trees 

 as stand along its line are lopped down, but not 

 severed from the stump, and made to fall length- 

 wise of the fence; enough more trees are brought to 

 it to give it the width and height required. Many 

 of the lopped ones live and, their wounds healing, 

 they grow to be vigorous trees, their fantastic 

 forms marking the course of the old brush fence 

 long after it has passed from the memory of man. 

 I remember a noted one which stood by the road- 

 side till an ambitious owner of a city lot bought it 

 and had it removed to his urban patch, where it 

 soon died. It was a lusty white oak, a foot or so 

 in diameter at the ground, three feet above which 

 the main trunk turned at a right angle and grew 

 horizontally for about ten feet, and along this part 

 were thrown up, at regular intervals, five perfect 

 smaller trunks, each branching into a symmetrical 

 head. It was the finest tree of such a strange 

 growth that I ever saw, and if it had grown in a 

 congenial human atmosphere, doubtless would 

 have flourished for a hundred years or more, and 

 likely enough, have become world-renowned. It 

 was sold for five dollars! No wonder it died! 

 The log fence was a structure of more substance 



