WILDWOOD WAYS 



for some occult reason banked the pond as 

 they surrounded their fields with the stone 

 fences which last still. No man of to- 

 day, however ardent a farmer, builds 

 these great barriers between field and 

 field. Yet even with the stone walls be- 

 fore the eye it is hard to believe that men 

 built dykes along the pond shore that 

 averaged a hundred feet across and were 

 in some places much more. A ten-foot 

 bank would do, and it was hard to believe 

 that so much labor would be willingly 

 wasted. Yet along the Ponkapoag Pond 

 shore in one place is a barrier many feet 

 high and broad built, not of sand, but of 

 the rough slate rock of the region, thrown 

 together loosely in huge rough blocks and 

 tamped with earth. This is so much big- 

 ger than any of the field-enclosing stone 

 walls that it puts the modern farmer 

 quite out of the question, and on finding 

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