Station 23: Double Stone Wall

Double stone walls like this one are found around the edges of cultivated fields. These walls serve as "dumps" for the stones that are removed from the field when they are created and then again each spring before they are planted. Each winter and spring the repeated freezing and thawing of the soil works more stones to the surface.

Click on either side of the stone wall to discover their land use history.

Note that soil eroding down slope in the cultivated field has built up against the wall. Because much more of this landscape was used for pasture than for crops, these double walls are much less common than the single walls that typically served as pasture fences.