"I shall begrudge no reasonable expense that will contribute to the improvement and neatness of my farms," he wrote one of his managers, "for nothing pleases me better than to see them in good order, and everything trim, handsome, and thriving about them; nor nothing hurts me more than to find them otherwise." Live hedges tend to make a place look well and it was probably this and his passion for trees that caused Washington to go in extensively for hedges about his farms.

They took the place of wooden fences and saved trees and also grew more trees and bushes.

His ordinary course in building a fence was to have a trench dug on each side of the line and the dirt thrown toward the center.

Upon the ridge thus formed he built a post and rail fence and along it planted cedars, locusts, pines, briars or thorn bushes to discourage cattle and other stock.

The trenches not only increased the efficiency of the fence but also served as ditches.
In many places they are still discernible.