68 THE COW 



tling always with the primitive herculean labors 

 of the pioneer, and then one day I see an old and 

 time-worn man with a form built for strength but 

 very still, carried out on his last going, and I see 

 two of his sons take up the work where he laid it 

 down, still clearing the land and building always 

 more walls. 



I confess that with us building stone walls is at- 

 taining the dignity of a lost art. I do not think 

 this is because we are sluggards but rather be- 

 cause there are so many mills drawing wire and 

 such wonderful mechanical fingers weaving it into 

 ready-made fencing at very moderate prices a rod. 



But in the HUl-Country those long gray lines of 

 piled-up stone represent a very important part of 

 the epic labors of the pioneer. I believe that the 

 toil invested in this particular farm activity in 

 the northeastern and New England states during 

 the last three hundred years would in the aggre- 

 gate exceed that involved in building the Panama 

 Canal or our transcontinental railways. It was 

 accomplished by men who counted not the hours 

 and who labored with enthusiasm because they felt 

 that theirs was a goodly heritage. 



The pitiful fact about it all, however, is that 

 very often this has proved unrewarded toil. It 

 seems to me that there was something fine about 

 these earlier generations of men — something that 

 we have lost. In the Hill-Country of New York 

 and New England where land values are low and 



