| f 606 WALL. 
W ALL-CRESS. 
A most important consideration respecting | hold of them when the plough passes as near to 
dry-stone wall fences is to render them efficient 
for confining mountain sheep. It is found that 
| a five quarter wall cannot confine that kind of 
sheep; nor, indeed, can a much higher wall do 
it; for they have a clambering way of scaling, 
not leaping, high walls. The propensity in these 
creatures to leap fences, is strongest, when they 
are brought down at first to the low country 
from the hills. After they have acquired some 
condition by feeding, the desire to escape, in a 
great degree, leaves them. There is a device, 
| however, which has been practised with some 
success on these walls, to keep them in at first, 
and that is, to erect long stones, like pavement 
stones, about a foot above the ordinary coping, 
at short distances from one another, among the 
coping-stones. These stones have a notch cut 
into their upper edge, which can support a small 
rail of wood, or a rope of twisted straw. This 
rail or rope appearing to them so frail, as not to 
be able to bear their weight at such a height, 
seems to deter them from attempting to leap the 
wall. Sometimes small branches of furze are 
stuck in between the cope-stones as objects of 
terror to them, but which are objectionable, in 
as far as when they begin to shrink in withering, 
they lose hold of the wall, and are blown about 
among the sheep by the wind; and, as they ge- 
nerally get entangled among their wool, they 
_ become sources of serious annoyance to the sheep, 
particularly in spring, as they feed on turnips, 
when the weather is often windy, and the ground 
‘| bare. 
In a line of wall, near perhaps the outside of 
the farm, through which there is no traffic by 
carts, but which may be adjacent to a common 
or moor, over which the sheep may sometimes 
be allowed to ramble, an opening in the wall will 
serve the purpose of egress and ingress to the 
sheep, better than a common gateway. Such an 
opening will be found a convenient outlet in any 
part of the farm, for the sheep at particular sea- 
sons, such as lambing-time, for the ewes and 
lambs to pass through a short cut to the new 
grass, or for sheep feeding on turnips, to pasture 
on an adjoining part of the lea in wet weather. 
This opening should never be made less in size 
|| than will easily admit a free passage to a ewe 
| big with lamb. 
|  Itisthe practice of some fence-builders to allow 
the thorough-band to project beyond one or both 
faces of the wall, to show that it is a thorough- 
band stone; and they even leave others project- 
ing out of the wall, on the pretence that they 
would rather do that than run the risk of break- 
ing a good stone to pieces. A dexterous hand 
at the hammer will never break a good stone use- 
lessly. These projecting stones are not only 
temptations to wandering people, who are con- 
stantly trespassing through the country, to step 
over walls, to the danger of pushing off their tops 
at least ; but the end of the horse-trees catches 
the wall in ploughing as it can go. Ifthe builder | | 
should leave a small or thin edge of a stone pro- | 
jecting beyond the wall in building, or the edge 
of a cover too far out, he should break the pro- 
jecting part off by a smart blow with the ham- 
mer when the building is finished, and the pres- 
sure of the superincumbent building will great- 
ly assist in breaking it off at the point of pro- 
jection. 
When a wall has two faces, it is said to bea 
double one; and in all cases where two fields are 
separated by a wall, it should be a double one. 
But should the wall be between a wood and a 
field, then the side next the wood need not be 
finished so finely as the one next the field, as it 
will not be so much seen, though it will be as 
strong as the other; and, therefore, in choosing | 
from a great mass of materials, some of the 
coarser should be taken to the side of the fence 
next the wood. Any projecting pieces left next 
the wood willdo no harm. Sunk fences should 
be built with a taper back towards the top, and 
the space between the earth and the wall should 
be well packed with stones for the sake of sta- 
bility. Inattention to this packing sometimes 
causes a dry-built earth-fence to fall down by 
the pressure occasioned behind the wall by the 
swelling of the earth. 
Where a wall has to cross an old-est blished 
footpath, it is expedient for the safety of the 
fence to construct easy steps in the wall at that 
part of it, for the sake of allowing the passengers | 
to step over with facility; as, in every such case, 
the more easily the passage can be effected, the 
less damage willaccrue to the wall. These steps 
can be made either of stones, or of wood built 
into the wall itself; or a wooden stair placed 
astride over the cover of the wall will serve the 
same purpose. They are much better than those 
cross turn-stiles which are sometimes used, and 
which cannot keep in sheep.. Small ladders of | 
the former kind are useful in saving the fences | 
from the passage of shepherds, who may have | 
frequent occasion to walk to the extremities of | 
the farm, even late at night, to look after the | 
sheep, and who cannot be expected to go always 
round by the gateways. 
WALL-CRESS,—botanically Avadis. Asome- | 
what large and diversified genus of herbaceous © 
plants, of the cruciferous order. Six species grow | 
wild in the British Islands; about fifty have been | 
introduced from other countries, principally Con- 
tinental Europe, North America, and North- | 
eastern Asia; and nearly twenty more are known. | |. 
A few of those in Britain are annuals, more are 
biennials, and the majority are evergreen peren- | 
nials; some are creeping, and most are erect; || 
about one half have a height of from 3 to 9 | 
inches, and the rest vary in height from 9 to 30 
inches; many have clasping cauline leaves, and 
many sessile cauline leaves; some have either 
sulphur-coloured, pinkish, reddish, bluish, or 
TMUBNAT SEAS FU NIST el Ah Ut SOUL Bee ER ce eg 
