More Cross and Rider/Cross and Rail

Six rails are said to make a legal worm-fence;

          Heavy rocks are often placed- under the corners ;

And a fence built with 1 1/2 to 2 feet of stone,

With 3 rails above,

                      Is deemed a Good Fence.

   "How is it," one might ask, "That early colonial settlers and later immigrant farmers failed to notice these alleged "Serpent Walls" that seem to be everywhere, once one notices how to recognize them?"

     One may note some stolen and altered images, certain to get me into trouble with someone somewhere, often include some cross and rail fence drawings "mashed up" with a photo of a particularly remarkable (I almost said "Striking," but that's something different) Serpent head over the years on this blog. Here's a recent desecration of a book cover that one might say shows some 'changes in the land,' illustrating a certain stone snake row of stones in a local locale (my neighborhood): 

Another, along another local roadside,  a parcel of land had it's status raised from "howling wilderness" into an "improved homelott," in the late 1600s and early 1700s, because doing this was a simple way to meet the height requirement for a proper, legally defined fence around a private property:

But actually, as in the first photo above, the "Cross and Rail" hides that Snake head:

 It's a Case of the Cross and Rail Cover-Up...

One may read or hear that:

 "In the days before stonewall building became an art form, the walls were “linear landfills,” in Thorson’s phrase. As landscape historian John Stilgoe explains, “The stone walls of New England … were built by men interested far more in land-clearing than in fencing.”

https://vtdigger.org/2019/01/27/vermonts-stone-walls-never-meant-fences/

“The early Fence Laws of New England

 were created by men interested far more in land-acquisition

 than in farming.” 

- Sherlock Stones

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/04/sherlock-stones-and-preachers-stone.html