Yesterday's common
sense ideas to help you maintain and enjoy your country home,
garden, landscape and property.
From The American Agriculturist, 1867
In some regions a stone wall is the cheapest fence that can be
made. In many respects, too, it is the best for farm purposes. It
has a look of honest stability that is truly pleasing, but is
rarely advisable, except where adjoining fields will furnish
stones enough to enclose them, and the fields will be greatly
improved by their removal. Every wall will tumble down some time
or other. On springy soils, draining is indispensable. A trench
should be dug a foot or more deep with plow and scraper. Then draw
the larger stones for the foundation, and dump them in the trench,
which will save much hand-lifting. Afterwards draw the smaller,
scattering them along the entire line. Of course, the stones
should be laid so as to bind as much as possible, and inclining
inwards somewhat. If practical, find enough flat stones to cover
the top of the fence, and help to throw off the rain, and to
prevent Jack Frost from tearing it to pieces.
