Left to itself, the earth of NH produces glacial rocks, year after year, eroded up out of our topsoil by rain and snow. NH farming — and just 100 years ago, NH was almost all farmland –meant dragging the glacial rocks to the edge of your field, where they could be piled up into New England stone walls.
New England stone walls — I’ve even built one myself — don’t need any mortar. You start with a ground layer of your heaviest boulders. Self-protection dictates this, because higher layers of the wall are made of rocks that you have lifted and dropped!
Once you set the ground layer, a matching process begins between rough rock and odd-shaped crevice. Two big rounded stones sitting side by side on the ground create an implied empty space between them into which one of your left-over rocks will fit better than any of your others…
I’ve been admiring the different ways that Japanese stone walls get built from the same kinds of rough, gray glacial till…