226 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, then* wounds healing, 

 they grow to be vigorous trees, then* 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 



