220 PROTECTION OF WOODLANDS. 



our later developments of proprietary rights, the insistence on 

 and retention of which necessarily led to some system of more 

 exact demarcation of individual rights within the estates that 

 were gradually growing in value, natural features could no longer 

 be relied on in the vast majority of cases, and artificial marks, 

 such as heaps of stones, earthen mounds, stakes, boundary pillars, 

 hedges, green lanes, ditches, &c., had to be used for the delimita- 

 tion of landed property. And though all proprietary rights are 

 now strictly ascertainable in a legal sense, and easily kept in view 

 by accurate surveys, yet for ordinary purposes the different por- 

 tions of all landed property are still marked off by walls, ring- 

 fences, posts with notice-boards, hedge-rows, ditches, and the like. 



Those different methods of demarcation vary considerably in 

 durability. Ditches fall into disrepair, so as gradually to become 

 almost indistinguishable if not kept in proper order, and even the 

 stoutest poles of heartwood rot and decay in time, although charred, 

 and tarred, and otherwise treated with antiseptics. Hedge-rows, 

 with standard trees here and there, or avenues of timber-trees, 

 have not the stable element of durability and permanence that is 

 desirable, so that in almost all instances the best means of affixing 

 marks of a practically permanent description consist in the use 

 of stone, either in the formation of walls surrounding the estate, 

 or merely as boundary marks at all points of importance. 



When stones are used for boundary marks at all angles, it is 

 better to give them a certain amount of dressing than to put 

 them in the ground in a comparatively rough and unhewn con- 

 dition, and, of course, wherever obtainable, some practically im- 

 perishable igneous kind of stone should invariably be selected, 

 like granite, basalt, or greenstone, for sandstones are liable to 

 waste away, and stratified rocks of clayey composition soon 

 become damaged by frost. 



The shape that these boundary stones should take, and the 

 height to which they should project out of the ground, are matters 

 resting, of course, with the individual wishes of the landowner. 

 Very good marks are furnished by stones standing about three feet 

 out of the ground, the portion above the soil being dressed square, 

 and showing by graven lines on its flat head, drawn in the direction 

 of the nearest stones on each side, the angle formed by the boundary 

 lines to that point, whilst the heavier portion under ground 

 remains rough and unhewn. That such boundary stones can, 



