• Stone walls that surround decades-old farm fields were a labor-intensive endeavor. These walls are the remnants of a farmer who wanted to clear his fields so he could plant more crops and make the land more productive. Today, stone walls are a stylish part of any modern landscape. When the farmer made the original rock walls, he was not concerned with stability, only a field clear of stones.
  
  

The Footer or Foundation

• A proper stone wall for the landscape of a home must have a proper footer or foundation so it will not settle or move with the changing weather. If not, heavy rainfall or freezing ground temperatures will cause a stone wall to heave upwards and move from side to side.
  A trench, as wide as the finished wall and dug below the frost line, must first be excavated. This trench is then filled, 12 to 18 inches deep, with a coarse gravel to act as a drainage pit. This allows the water to drain into the soil well below the stone wall. A layer of finer or pea-sized gravel, 6 to 8 inches deep is then tamped into place above the coarse gravel. This finer material allows the first course of rock to settle onto a good foundation bed.
  
  

The First Course

• Depending on the width of the wall, the first course of rock is placed below ground level on the foundation bed of fine gravel. These rocks are the largest and are positioned in a rectangular pattern. Generally, there is a gap of 12 to 24 inches between the two parts of the outside wall faces. Between these two showing faces, as the wall gains elevation, stubble rock is stacked. The stubble or rubble rock acts as a filler. The showing rock faces are stacked against this for strengthening the wall.
  
  

The Outside Show Face

• The properly built stone wall has two main components: the inside stubble and the outside showing face. The face of the stone wall will be put down in such a way that it stacks with no continuous joints running down into the ground. In other words, the joints between the stones are staggered. Each rock straddles the joint below it and acts like a bridge over the gap. The outside face will also be pitched back into the center of the wall as it gains height. For example, if the base of the stone wall is 36 inches wide, it may be pitched back to a width of 24 to 30 inches at the top. The higher the stone wall, the greater the pitch back to gain stability.
  
  

The Capping

• The top of the stone wall, or cap, will be the most select stones of the fence. These stones will be uniform in thickness and cover the entire rock structure. The cap will spread over the width of the wall, covering the rubble center and the outside face. The top cap will tie together the entire look of the new landscape stone wall fencing.