My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

;A LECTURE-TOUR IN AMERICA 285beauty which our country affords us, but which are,alas ! under the combined influences of capitalism andlandlordism, fast disappearing.But in America, except in a few parts of the northeasternStates, none of these favourable conditionshave prevailed. Over by far the greater part of thecountry there has been no natural development oflanes and tracks and roads as they were needed forcommunication between villages and towns that hadgrown up in places best adapted for early settlementbut the whole country has been marked out intosections and quarter-sections (of a mile, and a quarterof a mile square), with a right of way of a certainwidth along each section-line to give access to everyquarter-section of one hundred and sixty acres, to oneof which, under the homestead law, every citizen had,or was supposed to have, a right of cultivation andpossession. Hence, in all the newer States there areno roads or paths whatever beyond the limits of thetownships, and the only lines of communication forfoot or horsemen or vehicles of any kind are alongthese rectangular section-lines, often going up anddown hill, over bog or stream, and almost alwayscompelling the traveller to go a much greater distancethan the form of the surface rendered necessary.Then again, owing to the necessity for rapidly andsecurely fencing in these quarter-sections, and to thefact that the greater part of the States first settled werelargely forest-clad, it became the custom to buildrough, strong fences of split-trees, which utilized thetimber as it was cut and involved no expenditure ofcash by the settler. To avoid the labour of puttingposts in the ground the fence was at first usuallybuilt of rails or logs laid zigzag on each other to theheight required, so as to be self-supporting, the upper