380 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Considering how much more wood the worm fences require (since they run 

 in ben dings) than other inclosures which go in straight lines, and that they 

 are so soon useless, one may imagine how the forests will be consumed, and 

 what sort of an appearance the country will have forty or fifty years hence, 

 in case no alteration is made; especially as wood is really squandered away in 

 immense quantities, day and night all the winter, or nearly one-half of the year, 

 for fewel. 



These rude forefathers of ours evidently had small concern for 

 future posterity. Wood they had in abundance and they burned it 

 without stint. The smell of the hearth smoke must have gone deep 

 into their veins and its subtle influence still evokes a sense of homeli- 

 ness in those of us who perchance have inherited some ancestral re- 

 sponse that makes for happiness quite as much as acres of standing 

 timber. 



In New England the mantle of drift, that had been strewn over the 

 land by the melting of an ancient glacier, afforded abundant material 

 for the building of " stone fences." These old walls, beset with weeds 

 and briars, became the retreat of many of the smaller wild animals that 

 had been driven from their forest stronghold by the clearing of the 

 land. The fox still finds a friendly road in the cover of these bound- 

 aries, and the woodchuck, ensconced within some sheltering cranny, 

 whistles his shrill note of defiance against the harassing boy and dog. 



The surroundings of a homestead very often reflect certain local 

 conditions. The picturesque "well-sweep" still survives here and 

 there in rural New England and its origin may possibly be traced to 

 the long pine pole of the region. The well-sweep also appears in the 

 pine wood tracts of the coastal plain in Delaware, and probably else- 

 where. In the middle Atlantic region the "spring-house" was an 

 early adjunct of the dairy. Many old spring-houses still linger 

 throughout this land, with crumbling roofs and weathered walls falling 

 slowly into decay while the rill trickles through, reminiscent of a time 

 when pans of creamy milk and bowls of yellow butter stood cooling in 

 its water. Ofttimes, in near-by spots, these rills and springs are choked 

 with a growth of the pungent water-cress. Modern separator machin- 

 ery has dispossessed the spring-house — only on some remote farm does 

 it still do service. Its passing is not altogether to be regretted, for 

 many women-folk fell early victims to the crippling rheumatism that 

 its damp walls engendered. Occasionally some poor family makes a 

 home in one of these abandoned structures, and this recalls a still 

 more interesting abode which one now and then happens upon in some 

 out-of-the-way district— an old log-house that has lingered on through 

 the changing years, a quaint reminder of the past. I know of several 

 such houses not many miles from Philadelphia. The spring-house 

 appears to be altogether local in its origin; the abundant springs and 

 rills along the hillside borders of wide meadow pastures inviting the 



