186 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- 
