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 
