282 GENERAL ECONOMY OF THE FARM. 



that posts cut and put in the ground green will remain perfect- 

 ly sound many years after well seasoned posts, in the same 

 line of fence, in the same soil, and put in at the same time, 

 have entirely decayed. We need, however, further experi- 

 ments on all these points. 



II. STONE FENCES. 



WHERE suitable materials abound, or may be easily obtain- 

 ed, stone fences, properly constructed, are to be recommended 

 over all others. They are major from the day of their erec- 

 tion, are easily kept in repair, and should any portion fall, the 

 materials remain on the spot. The saving of land is great, as 

 the plough might and ought to pass close to the wall. The 

 expense of erection must vary according to circumstances. I 

 have had, says a correspondent of the Farmer's Cabinet, the 

 work done for two dollars a perch, of twenty -two feet in length 

 by six feet in height, quarrying the stone and carrying included, 

 while in some situationsl have given three times that sumforthe 

 same work.* Although it may not be practicable to enclose the 

 whole farm at first, still, if the materials are at hand, they may 

 be carried at leisure times, or whenever opportunity offers, to 

 the line of the intended fence, there deposited, to be put up 

 when sufficient for the erection of but a single perch at a time. 

 The work by this means would be accomplished sooner than 

 could be imagined once and forever. A stone fence should 

 never be erected on the surface, whatever may be its character 

 or situation; it should have a good and dry foundation, sunk 

 entirely beneath the influence of frost. 



Professor Low gives the following description of the me- 

 thod adopted in Scotland for erecting stone fences. He recom- 

 mends building on the surface or greensward if it is fine. This 

 practice may answer for Scotland and England, but it will not 

 suit this country, especially the middle and northern states. 



The stone wall may either be formed of stones built without cement, or it 

 may be built with mortar like common masonry. But the last of these me- 

 thods is rarely practised with the common fences of a farm. The cementing 

 of the stones with mortar, adds, indeed, to the durability of the wall, but then 

 the expense is generally too great in common cases. The wall, therefore, for 

 the ordinary purposes of the farm, may generally be built of stones alone, 

 though sometimes with a little mortar merely for cementing the coping, and 

 occasionally for pinning or closing the interstices of the outside. 



The materials for building the dry stone wall, as this kind of wall is termed, 

 may be sand-stone, whin-stone, or any other stone of sufficient durability. 



* Four and a half to five and a half feet, with a good coping, will be found 

 sufficiently high. 



