STONE WALLS 139 



wood the variety is endless. Even a pine, sometimes, 

 will crown an eminence, its great limbs unrestricted by 

 surrounding forest, stretching out in crabbed hori- 

 zontals like a cedar of Lebanon, a monarch of the 

 pasture. These hedgerows are utterly artless. Be- 

 cause neither the plough nor the mower can go quite 

 to the wall, long ago a fringe of weeds and small shrubs 

 pushed out a foot or two on either side, even in pastures 

 cropped by cattle; and once this protecting base of 

 shrubs was established the birds and mice and squirrels, 

 even the courier wind bearing maple seeds and poplar 

 down, could begin successfully to plant their garden. 

 As the years passed, and the trees grew taller and 

 stronger, the sumac pushed out suckers into the field, 

 the wild flowers massed more solidly amid the shrub- 

 bery, often the hedgerow would invade the clearing 

 for ten feet on either side of the wall, and the farmer 

 would have to attack it, trimming it back to the best 

 and strongest trees. If you will examine one of these 

 old hedges to-day you will often find, when you have 

 penetrated through the tangle of shrubs and tall mul- 

 leins and golden-rod into its heart, that the original 

 wall has fallen and become half buried. Perhaps on 

 top of it a rough rail fence has later been erected, 

 which now also has gone to ruin, while as the latest 

 barrier to prevent an ambitious cow from squeezing 

 through into the corn a barbed wire has been strung 

 along the trees natural fence posts which will not 



