INCLOSyRES 189 



fences has already been given on page 106; but some of 

 the finest places in this Colony are said to have had 

 "open yards" in Revolutionary days at least — ^possibly 

 because they had little in the way of actual gardens 

 to protect. The white picket fence and its variations, 

 always associated with New England's trim neatness, 

 belonged to the shipbuilding towns rather than to the 

 metropolis — and to the opening of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury mostly, although a few were built a little earlier 

 than this. The fanciful designs into which the picket 

 fence was elaborated, however, were the product of 

 the shipbuilders' art almost entirely; and the "ship 

 shape" upkeep of these fences was a source of much 

 pride and not a little competition in the intervals be- 

 tween voyages. 



One old flower, as sweet as any the garden knows — 

 the wallflower — which so well likes the well- 

 drained chinks of old stone walls, grew first probably 

 on the mud walls which were built long, long, long ago, 

 when bricks were a luxury. These were still used in 

 Parkinson's time by some in England as a substitute 

 for brick, from motives of economy. And mud walls 

 were tried in one part of America at least; but I can 

 find only the one mention of them. They were not 

 a success; that, however, was because of faults in con- 

 struction which there was never an effort to remedy, 

 apparently. Just who, and how many, built them, is 



