192 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



increased; and finally it became necessary for each 

 man to look after his own cattle instead of his neigh- 

 bors' ; to keep them within his own domain instead of 

 allowing them to wander as they pleased — with his 

 neighbor responsible for any harm they came to in his 

 fields. So the last quarter of the eighteenth century- 

 saw pastures and fields generally inclosed with "bar- 

 riers of wood or fences," according to Brissot. And 

 the day of the wilderness was over. Then came the 

 growing admiration for it and the desire to "know no 

 bounds"; and the area of the sunken fence — which is 

 nothing but a ditch — arrived. 



A barrier between what a writer of 1801 calls the 

 "family yard" and "farmyard intrusions," which he 

 highly recommended, was this ditch or sunken fence. 

 It had come into popularity in England along with the 

 craze for gardens au naturel, a fence, wall, hedge or 

 any sort of boundary marking being much despised 

 by the disciples of Nature untamed and unadorned. 

 Planting was necessary, however, to conceal the line 

 of even a "sunken fence"; so it was permissible to 

 top it with a "low and light palisade" which, with the 

 bank, was hidden from the house by rose trees planted 

 on the inner slope of the ditch. The white rose was 

 declared tallest and hardiest and handsomest for this, 

 but the damask rose was a better choice because it 

 yielded fine distilled water. 



