In New England, it seems you can’t throw a rock without hitting a stone wall. But have you ever really looked at a stone wall? William Hubbell has, and he has taken pictures and done his research and put it all together in “Good Fences.”

The coffee-table book is a sort of field guide to the region’s stone walls, and it will open new worlds for the reader. Just as novice birders are often amazed at how many species of birds there are, stone wall neophytes will be surprised at the varieties of walls that are native to New England.

Hubbell, who lives in Cumberland Foreside, starts off with a discussion of the glacial processes that left fields full of stones, with more “New England potatoes” boiling up out of the ground every spring.

The most interesting elements of the book are the photos and descriptions of different styles of stone walls. There are rubble walls, where farmers simply threw stones to get them out of the way. Boundary walls were used to mark the perimeters of lots or towns. Compound walls combined materials, often stone at the base with wood above. Lace walls were airy, see-through structures, often seen on Martha’s Vineyard. Capstone, or hard cap walls, were topped by large, flat stones (which, Hubbell points out, are valuable and often stolen). There are also bedrock walls and retaining walls; single-stack walls and double-stack walls; mosaic walls and chinked walls; estate walls and copestone walls.

And there are lessons to be learned from observing the patterns of old stone walls. Some creep as a wall settles downhill. Blowouts happen when a poorly packed wall settles; the stones on top press down on the interior, eventually popping out the stones in the lower course.

In any wall, the overall integrity is critical. “A stone in a well-made wall depends on those on either side of it for additional strength and security,” writes Hubbell. “Once the wall is breached, this security is compromised. This weakness spreads slowly like an infection in both directions.”

While heavy lifting is essential to stone wall building, some were built in smaller increments. New Hampshire’s Canterbury Shaker Village has walls built of small stones known as one-handers. If the stones in a wall are really small, Hubbell notes, there was probably a vegetable garden cleared nearby.

On the heavy end of the scale, stones that weighed over a ton – such as those in a wall at Grover Cleveland’s summer home in Tamworth, N.H. – had to be wrestled into place with a team and a stone boat, or a gin pole, winch and lifting hooks. Heavier yet is Rockland’s breakwater, which incorporates 700,000 tons of granite.

Hubbell dedicates several pages to animal pounds, and includes photos of well-laid foundations, dams and dry wall bridges. He also profiles six stone wall builders from different corners of New England. From the pre-European era, the book features photos of the ancient stone structures at Mystery Hill, N.H., and Gungywamp, Conn., both arranged along astronomical sight lines.

There’s even a photo of the New Hampshire wall behind the home of poet Robert Frost, whose poem “Mending Wall” includes the old saw that inspired the title: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

The book would have benefited from more thorough editing, but the images are what most will remember.

It’s unlikely that anyone will remain oblivious to stone walls after thumbing through this book. Hubbell conveys an infectious passion for stone walls. “They are monuments to tenacity and the New England work ethic,” writes Hubbell. “They are folk art of great majesty. They bring order and purpose to the New England landscape.”