How Stone Walls Became a Signature Landform of New England | Hacker News Reader

How Stone Walls Became a Signature Landform of New England

smithsonianmag.com

43 pointsrntn31 comments

Unmentioned by the article is the fact that many (most?) New England stone walls are no longer in fields; they're in the middle of fairly dense forest.

Wandering those forests and coming across an expansive network of stone walls, it's difficult to conceive that you're surrounded by what was once field or pasture. The reforestation of New England as agriculture migrated to happier climes was dramatic!

I was just about to write this exact post. You can come across an old stone wall anywhere no matter how deep into the forest you are. This is the New England I grew up in and have lived in my whole life, but other than old pictures from the early 1900's it is just hard to picture it not covered in trees.

Us New England mountain bikers appreciate all the effort that went in to both building the walls for us to ride over, and reforesting the land so there's trees to ride around, and the work to move it from private land to some public entity.

? Eh, stone walls are a byproduct of removing stones from fields. The humus part sets, new stones disappear, the game goes on and on. Fields do only become stonefree, if you add earth from some external source on top. Source: My youth on my dads farm.

Additional annoying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_consolidation Because not all those fields were properly consolidated (the internal walls moved to the outside, you get stripes in the new larger field, were there are stones again.

Yep. In areas where it freezes stones will continue to “pop” out of the ground for years and years and year, and when collected they have to go somewhere.

So, the freezing causes stones to be pushed up? That is a rather interesting phenomenon. Had never heard of it before.

I believe it's called "frost heaving."

Yep, water gets under the stone in the dirt, not enough for it to sink, and then the water/ground freezes, and pushes the stone up.

It's why foundations are build below the frost line, to prevent heaving.

The explanation actually makes sense. Although, why wouldn't the stone just sink back down when the water melts? It is not like the space made by the expanding ice gets filled in by dirt.

It's as well a case in my region in Central Europe, we colloquially say that "the soil breeds the stones". Corrosion, freezing and thaw cycles, they crumble the geological limestone layer beneath and push the rocks to the surface. More up north it's not the case, the "field stones" are remnants of the last glaciation in northern Europe.

It slows down dramatically after the initial stone purge right? I have some land where there are piles of large stones in the grove bordering old cropland but there are no visible stones in the field. I imagine 1 stone pushes through on the 80 acres every few years no need to add humus.

I don’t think the article mentioned an elected position a lot of small towns have around here in rural New England, the fence viewer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence_viewer

Can you give examples of towns that still elect fence viewers?

Are the elections contested? Are they partisan?

You will be lucky in most small towns around here to get one person to run for any post.

For instance I'm running for Fire District Commissioner next month, for a seat that has been vacant for years, and maybe 10 people will come vote.

BTW, here are some other fun elected positions in my town:

    - Constable
    - Tree Warden

what kind of ego blow would that be to have those 10 votes go for someone else?

We have a select person who won a write-in campaign he didn't know he was running. What you're proposing is shockingly plausible.

I was left with the distinct impression at town meeting that our town moderator got the role because he bought the previous town moderator's house.

Good luck with your campaign, and thanks for helping make your town run!

Williamstown Massachusetts entrusts our select board to appoint our fence viewer. They are listed on our website describing our town’s government.

https://williamstownma.gov/boards-committees/#officials

Party affiliation for the Fence Viewer is not listed on our town's report. At least here, it's an appointed position. I have no idea if this is true everywhere though.

I haven't lived here long enough to know if the Fence Viewer being called upon to resolve some dispute.

And I thought “supervisor of the checklist” was the silliest elected office name I was likely to encounter.

My favorite is the Measurer of Wood and Bark. We elect one every year still as a lark, but it used to be important as wood was the central way people generated energy in their homes so standardizing wood lots was of central importance in New England.

https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/brookline-tab/2014/07/17/w...

I'd elect the next one to be a dog

Everything you see that's made of plastic used to be made of wood.

I live in a Vermont town of about 600 people, and according to the 2022 town report, we have three Fence Viewers, along with a Weigher of Coal/Measurer of Wood.

For the record, I have no idea what the weigher of coal would do if I showed up to his place and asked him to weigh a load of coal for me.

The tourist stopped to take some pictures for his instagram and saw an old farmer clearing rocks from his field. "Where did all those rocks come from?" the tourist asked. "The glacier brought 'em", the farmer replied. "What happened to the glacier?" "It went back to get more rocks."

There’s a very good YouTube channel that deals with the history of New England forests with Tom Wessels, a terrestrial ecologist, it’s called NewEnglandForests

I love Wessels. His book, Reading The Forested Landscape, is a must for anyone that spends time in New England forests. It's fun to imagine all of these small mountains being essentially sheep fields at one point.

Anytime I'm in the woods I'm looking for pillows and cradles and trying to determine if they were formed by hurricanes, nor'easters or typical storms.

Someone over here is a big fan of Shawshank Redemption and that's how this got to the front page. See how Andy left a message for Red.

  He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
  Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
  He will not go behind his father’s saying,
  And he likes having thought of it so well
  He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

  - Robert Frost, "Mending Wall" (1914)

Skip this meandering self indulgent article and just read the poem

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall

The article gave me some pleasant nostalgic vibes. Then it took a predictable turn into anthropogenic climate change. I was immediately thrust back into the hyper-political present.

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