242 NEW ENGLAND FENCES 



too, for the rail fence and stone wall are con- 

 venient highways for the squirrel whereon to 

 pass from nut-tree and cornfield to storehouse 

 and home, and for puss to pick her dainty way, 

 dry-footed, to and from her mousing and bird- 

 poaching in the fields; the coon walks there, and 

 Reynard makes them a link in the chain of his 

 subtle devices. 



One cannot help thinking of the possibility that, 

 by and by, high farming may become universal, 

 and soiling may become the common practice of 

 farmers, and that then the building and keeping 

 up of fences will end with the need of them, and 

 the boundaries of farms be marked only by iron 

 posts or stone pillars; then the old landmarks of 

 gray fences, with their trees and shrubs and flower- 

 ing weeds, will have passed away and no herds of 

 kine or flocks of sheep dot the fields; and then, 

 besides men and teams, there will be no living 

 thing larger than a bird in the wide landscape. 

 The prospect of such a time goes, with many 

 other things, to reconcile one to the thought, that 

 before that day his eyes will be closed in a sleep 

 which such changed scenes will not trouble. 



