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    "The split-rail fences bound in the pastures, with now and then a gate or a bar of poles.
    "For the most part of the chestnut timber was felled and split.
    "There was art or what the natives called a 'sleight' in this, as there was art in laying the worm for the fence - the first line of rails, each corner on a stone, upon which the structure of the fence was to be erected; after which it was finished with a stake and rider.  The great pastures running to the crest of the mountains were all enclosed with this fence.  The haystacks standing in the meadows had a foundation of these rails for a base.  They were enclosed by a like fence with a high rider to hold out the bullock, until the heavy snows came."

Source: Melville Davisson Post, "The Mystery at Hillhouse" (1928).