i86 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



know; pales were sharp-pointed stakes — or strong 

 shoots or saplings — set close together and driven into 

 the ground sufficiently to keep them firm; or fastened,, 

 top and bottom, to a horizontal stay, as the common 

 picket fence of to-day. This indeed developed from 

 them. Both these forms are recognized as "fences"; 

 but English usage would also include any other sort 

 of barrier, either ditch and bank, wall of stone, or 

 boards on posts. So the Court used "fence" in a 

 kindly desire to be broad in its requirements, and give 

 each an opportunity to choose the method best suited 

 to his resources. 



The legal fence, however, had to be four and a half 

 feet high, and closed at the bottom, that hogs might 

 not go through. And the object of the fence law was 

 not to compel owners to keep their livestock in, but 

 to oblige them to defend their crops from the gen- 

 erally free wandering kine. Otherwise they would be 

 destroyed; and this led to much complaint and dicker- 

 ing. It was regarded as a man's own fault if some- 

 one else's cow ate his cabbages; he was never the in- 

 jured party. And if she broke a leg in his field, he 

 had to pay the damage to her owner. 



So the areas within which the crops grew, were in- 

 closed comparatively early; but of general outer in- 

 closures to the plantations there were none for a long 

 period. Livestock roamed freely, grazing on the un- 



