532 
Farming in Devon and Covniuall. 
Fig. 3. 
crumbled down by 
cattle running their 
horns into them, or 
putting their forefeet 
on when cropping the 
herbage of the upper 
part. To guard 
against this, a com- 
mon practice is to 
place a row of barbed 
wire on posts, which 
are driven either hori- 
zontally into the 
banks, or vertically 
at their feet, so as 
to hold the wire up 
to about half the 
height of the bank, 
and from 1 to 3 feet 
from its face. But 
the most permanent 
improvement (next 
to actual removal of 
the bulk of them) is 
to face the bank with 
stones, where they 
are obtainable at rea- 
sonable cost. Much 
of this work has been 
done of late years, 
and offers an effectual 
barrier to the crum- 
bling referred to. 
Sometimes the stones 
are laid flat with their 
narrow ends or faces 
to the front, as in 
fig. 3. Where the 
stones are long and 
thin they are placed 
vertically (because 
they then offer less 
foothold for the cattle] 
as in fig. 4. A 
third method, where 
