Front Dooryards 



39 



which shaped and bounded the front yard ; the 

 side fences extended from the corners of the house 

 to the front fence on the edge of the road, and 

 thus formed naturally the guarded parallelogram. 

 Often the fence around the front yard was the 

 only one on the farm ; everywhere else were boun- 

 daries of great stone walls ; or if there were rail 



The Flowering Almond under the Window. 



fences, the front yard fence was the only painted 

 one. I cannot doubt that the first gardens that 

 our foremothers had, which were wholly of flower- 

 ing plants, were front yards, little enclosures hard 

 won from the forest. 



The word yard, not generally applied now to any 

 enclosure of elegant cultivation, comes from the 

 same root as the word garden. Garth is another 



