New England's 'Classical Ruins' Vanishing

Columnist Tom Condon meditates on the disappearing New England stone wall in the Hartford Courant: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall, said our man Robert Frost, referring to the classic stone walls that crisscross the New England countryside. He blamed 'frozen-ground-swell' and hunters. If he were around today, he'd point the finger at real estate developers, stone dealers and, until quite recently, the state Department of Transportation. ... Frost's metaphorical point aside, we're losing these great icons of New England's past, losing them to sprawl, greed and short-sightedness, losing them yards at a time or miles at a time. Ancient green and gray loaves and balls of stone are being carted off to be used as landscaping stone. ... We should appreciate them, and save them. They are ... the closest thing we have to classical ruins."