We are Canadian. We have to keep warm in the winter. We know how to stack wood. We don't lay it along the line of the wood pile. We lay it into the pile. If you can't stack wood properly you shouldn't be allowed in this country. It's as patriotic as peameal bacon. It's as natural as maple syrup.
So why not apply all this natural, cultural, structural knowledge to stacking rocks? Why do Canadians still try to lay stones along a wall? Why do they insist on reinventing the wall? You would think that if it works for wood, if you don't need glue or cement to build long neat rows of firewood, then maybe the technique could be carried over to stacking rocks?
And yet, so often we fall short in our thinking and our walls fall short of being structural.
Most stones have some sort of length. So let's place them neatly and properly INTO the wall, long ways. Even mortared stonework would be more structural if masons did that, instead of laying them like vertical patio stones.
The photo above shows different piles of well stacked wood. The stonework on the other hand, is not that great, and is relying on mortar to keep the veneer stones from falling off the building. Go figure, eh?
