St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-06-15
Take Down the Fences.

Take Down the Fences.
The Times has said good many
things about the removal of the fences
that disfigure our streets and houses,
and has made number of attempts to
set the 'rural club" at work in this di-
rection. Nothing has been done about
it, however, and we shall he obliged to
continue our preaching indefinitely.
There is an absurd prejudice in favor of
fences-a prejudice that is inherited
from barbarOus ancestors. We do not
know the history of fences, but it is a
fact that they grow smaller and disap-
pear as civilization advances. The fence
of old England was high brick struc-
ture, which was evidently built to guard
the owner of the premises from all
neighborly advances, to keep all that
was his entirely his, free not only from
the inroads of cattle, but from the pry-
ing eyes of those who might desire to
crafty themselves by the sight of the
beauty of his lawns and flOwer-beds.
The American fence had developed
from this into an ugly cattle guard,
stiff and angular, serving to narrow the
field of vision by breaking up the nat
ural lines of the landscape, and pro-
claiming loudly to each owner that thus
far his land goes and no farther.
We wish that our land owners would
make up an excursion and visit Will
Jamestown. We can assure them they
might spend not only pleasant but an
instructive day there. On the main
street of that village, somewhat longer
than our own, most of the fences have
been taken down, and the change fol
the better that has thus been brought
about. can he seen at a glance even by
those who do not remember the day OF
its picket fences. The street, which is
much wider than our own, has its width
added to by the lawns, which are not
now hidden and broken up by wooden
barriers. The sweep of lawn from the
houses to the walks produces IA charm
ing effect. There are no cramped lit
tie plots of ground such as we see
everywhere where front and partition
fences abound, but each owner has such
a view of lawn and garden as he would
were he proprietor of a great park.
The founder OF the Laurel Hill Asso-
citation, which has done so much for the
heautifying of Stock bridge (Rev. n. II
Eggleston,) has the following about fen
ceS i'll one of his papers on "Villages
and Village Life :"
"As we become more truly civilized
and tasteful we shall feel less need OF
these barricades between us and eul
fellow men, and shall be unwilling tC
mar the sweep and beauty of the lines
which nature has given TO the surface
of our fields and grounds by cutting
them across. as we now do, by our stiff
and rectangular division fences. We
shall then forbid swine and cattle tC
make pasture glound of our highway,
or to go in them without a keeper, and
so shall not need our wooden or iron
barriers to protect our fields and gar
dens from their incursions. Aud theu
we shall have, also, enough of the
neighborly feeling to be willing to mark
the limits of our premises by some or,
dinarily invisible means. This is done
now in some cases, by light structure
of wire only, marking the line of divis-
ion between the city or village plots
or, i'll some cases, only Il stone on the
| front and rear lines, sunken in the
earth to preserve for legal purposes the
true boundaries of the properties. In
gestion of good neighborhood, which i,
so pleasant, but, what is very desirable
in the case of the commonly small area,
of our city and village plots, the adjoin
ing proprietoIs practically enlarge thei
premises. The eye of each proprietor
us he looks out of his windows, sweep,
along Il ground surface far beyond what
he owns. He may have legal title to q
plot only fifty or hundred feet il
width, yet he may seem to be living OF
one many times that extent. And he
may enjOy it almost us much as though
it were all his own.
To look upon his neighbor's trees anC
turf and flowers are as much his own as
his neighhor's. So both gain by
practical enlargement of their posses
siOns. As sit on my piazza and look
across my little lawn upon my neighbor
the doctors wide stretch of green sward
with its maple and evergreen, its vase.
and flower beds, no fences or barrier o
any kind between us, his trees and
flowers and grass are practically mine
as much as his. Indeed | believe | see
them to better advantage than he does.
And yet they cost me nothing. He is
welcome at the same time to look out
upon my grounds and get all the enjoy
ment of them he can"
We hope it is not asking too much of
our ''rural club" to do what they can to
prevail upon property owners to pull
down their unsightly fences, and re-
lease the beauty that is now hidden by
them.-G Greenfield Times.