Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-09-02
agricultural.
Old Stone Walls.

We have always made it point in our
column, To recommend the removal of all the
old stone walls and useless division fences
which cumber our fields, and, besides neces-
stating a waste of large portion of the en-
closed land, furnish acceptable homes for
vermin, and fertile nurseries for noxious
weeds.
The time has gone by when arabic land in
New England is of so little value that it may
be wasted, as it was when old stone walls
We're built, and it Is time that the farmers
should see the folly OF cutting up their farms
by numerous and unnecessary division fences
A few days since we crossed tract of about
sixteen acres which under cultivation,
with variety of crops. The tract as near
as we could measure it by pacing was about
sixty rods long and forty-two rods wide it
was surrounded by stone walls, which aver
aged considerably more than foot in thick
ness. Through the middle of the whole ran
another stone wall and on the eastern side OF
il was anothr division wall, and on the west
ern side two others, thus cutting the whole
tract into five fields. In the larger field was
planted corn, IN two of the others potatoes.
and in the other two squshes and variety
of vegetables. The soil was good and the
crops gave evidence of careful cultivation.
AT the first opportunity we made Salcu
lation of the amount of land that was actu-
ally wasted by the presence of these walls,
and we found that, allowing width of only
eighteen inches from the wall, which to our
readers will certainly appear within bounds
there was, including the land bordering on
the outer walls, and on both sides of the d
vision fences, altogether about III 500 square
feet actually wasted /; to this must be added
the land on which the division fence stood.
certainly 2l0O feet, and we have ID ,662 feet
of land worse than useless.
Now the owner Of the land probably never
i L
cupied, and even if he has, he considers that
it viii not pay to remove them. In that he
is mistaken, for it does pay to move every
unnecessary wall on the farm.
We know a farmer, young in years, though
shrewd in management, who is getting rid
of all the walls in his tillage lands. He lives
near large manufacturing village, and has
given all the walls to parties who will carry
them off his land They are disappearing
rapidly, being worked up into foundation
walls, for dwelling houses and barns and
the parties who are moving them congratu-
late themselves having made good bar
gain. 20 they have they are getting good
stone for the trouble of hauling it but has
not the owner of the farm also made an ex-
cellent bargain at any rate he considers that
he has and would be willing to throw into
the work a part of the labor of his own men,
Now all of us do not live in the neighbor-
hood Of large villages, and parties do not al
ways stand ready to carry off old walls, tax
ing the stones for payment for their work
but there are always places where they can
he used to advantage. Burying them in
trenches, in the form ofdrains, carting them
into the swamps, from which muck has beer
hauled and using them to level up the holes
and depressions of the tilage lands, covering
them OF course with the soil, are some of the
methods by which they may be disposed of
at any rate they should be placed beneath
the surface IF the ground rather than be per
mitted to stand above it, and the time is up
us when part of this labor can be accom-
plished. There will be, doubtless, few
acres ST sward land broken up this autumn
most farms, and now that the hay is tax
en- off n good chance offers to remove all such
unsightly encumbrances. Do not plough
around the old walls, but plough ouer them
and although the work of removing thembe
great, the amount of new land which will is
made available, will if not in the first year,
most certainly in succeeding years, amply
compensate for the labor expended. Plough