See quotations, 1803, 1824, 1826. A drunken man, by reason of his devious movement, is said to make a “Virginia fence.”
1745. He [being drunk] makes a Virginia fence.—B. Franklin, ‘Works’ (1887), ii. 26. (N.E.D.)
1770. To be sold, One Hundred Acres of good Land, inclosed with good Stone Wall and Virginia fence.—Boston Evening Post, Dec. 31.
1803. [In Virginia] the fields are surrounded by a rough zig-zag log fence.—Thaddeus M. Harris, ‘Journal of a Tour,’ June 6, p. 58 (Boston, 1805).
1817. You pass no stone-walls [in Virginia]; but hedge, or in-and-out zig-zag cedar rails, or wattled fences, if indeed any, on the main roads.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 59 (Boston, 1824).
1826. The universal fence [in the West],—split rails, laid in a worm-trail, or what is known in the north by the name of Virginia fence.—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 206.
1837. Mr. Adams said “it was physically impossible for [Mr. Cambreleng] to toe the mark; that gentleman’s marks were always so very crooked—zigzag—like what yankee boys termed a Virginia fence.”—Corr. Balt. Commercial Transcript, Oct. 5. p. 2/2.
1838. The changing lizard ran on the old Virginia fence unscared.—Caroline Gilman, ‘Recollections of a Southern Matron,’ p. 224.
1838. [In consequence of the windings of the road] the traveller … describes with his route a complete Virginia fence.—E. Flagg, ‘The Far West,’ ii. 44 (N.Y.).
1839. For awhile, I doubted whether Mr. Jefferson had not abandoned his most distinguishing political land-marks, or, in some degree substituted for their right-lined directness, a meandering course, sometimes familiarly illustrated by the homely figure of ‘a Virginia worm fence.’—Robert Mayo, ‘Political Sketches,’ p. 39 (Balt.).
1845. His second proposition is to surround the square with a Virginia rail fence, instead of an iron one.—Yale Lit. Mag., x. 388 (July). (Italics in the original.)
1846. A rough Virginia fence, over which the Cherokee rose had entwined itself, as if in mercy to its jagged appearance, made a good shade and a deep shadow at some hours of the day, and from its prodigal wealth in little buds, enlivened dull fishing.—T. B. Thorpe, ‘Mysteries of the Backwoods,’ p. 158.
1853. Instead of smiling hedgerows, with here and there a weeping elm or plumy evergreen to cast their graceful shadows upon the pasture land, his acres were enclosed with harsh stone walls, or an unpicturesque Virginia fence, with its zigzag of rude rails.—Durivage, ‘Life Scenes,’ p. 99.
1857. Already in the big fire-place (thanks to those who made such fire-places in all the rooms of all the old houses down in that dear old section of the world) burned the cheerful maple log, with here and there, poked in like the rails of a Virginia fence, a stick of hickory with its quick rifle-firing.—Knick. Mag., l. 63 (July).
1858. I was constrained to lay out the ground plan of a Virginia worm-fence every time I went to Post.—Yale Lit. Mag., xxiii. 183 (April).
1889. See SHOAT.
