https://www.thespectrum.com/story/life/family/2015/04/05/stone-walls-pervasive-northeast/25328109/ https://www.thespectrum.com/story/life/family/2015/04/05/sto.

https://www.thespectrum.com/story/life/family/2015/04/05/stone-walls-pervasive-northeast/25328109/ https://www.thespectrum.com/story/life/family/2015/04/05/sto... > In 1871 the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a “Statistics of Fences In the United States.” At that time, it noted that in New England and New York State alone, there were 252,539 miles of stone walls, enough to circle the globe ten times, and to build all the pyramids of Egypt times one hundred. It has been calculated that such an effort would have required an army of 15,000 workers 243 years to accomplish. When you are trying to harvest crops on a series of glacial moraines, stones dropped by glaciers and brought to the surface by each winter's freeze/thaw cycles are the most reliable annual crop. :-) In spring, after thaw, but before the ground is dry enough to till and plant, some levers, a ground level sledge or "stone boat", and draft animal(s) to pull it will get the stones to the edge of the field. Making a more tidy "dry" or unmortared stone wall from them is optional.