When the fences disappeared with the night rambles of the cows, the front yards gradually changed character; the tender blooms vanished, but the tall shrubs and the Peonies and Flower de Luce sturdily grew and blossomed, save where that dreary destroyer of a garden crept in—the desire for a lawn. The result was then a meagre expanse of poorly kept grass, with no variety, color, or change,—neither lawn nor front yard. It is ever a pleasure to me when driving in a village street or a country road to find one of these front yards still enclosed, or even to note in front of many houses the traces of a past front yard still plainly visible in the flourishing old-fashioned plants of many years' growth.
CHAPTER III
VARIED GARDENS FAIR
"And all without were walkes and alleys dight
With divers trees enrang'd in even rankes;
And here and there were pleasant arbors pight
And shadie seats, and sundry flowering bankes
To sit and rest the walkers wearie shankes."
—Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser.
Many simple forms of gardens were common besides the enclosed front yard; and as wealth poured in on the colonies, the beautiful gardens so much thought of in England were copied here, especially by wealthy merchants, as is noted in the first chapter of this book, and by the provincial governors and their little courts; the garden of Governor Hutchinson, in Milford, Massachusetts, is stately still and little changed.