Yard (unit)

“ Yard by yard, with patient under-sea sweeping, all that waste of sand brought down by the Buffalo is being cleared away; yard by yard, two massive arms of solidest masonry are stretching themselves out beyond those cruel breakers: the river is being forced into so narrow a channel that the rush of the water must needs carry the sand far out to sea in future, and scatter it in soundings where it cannot accumulate into such a barrier as that which now exists. ”

“ In a dark angle of a yard, behind a woodshed cluttered and foul, there is a pool of stinking black water out of which you can fish rotten burlap and odds and ends of the social history of all the houses. The curious children have turned pale green, like sprouts in a cellar, and their arms are thin as pipestems. ”

“ Behind you is a timber yard, sending forth its strawberry-pine perfume. There is always some attractions in a timber yard. Whether you will or not it fascinates you; you enter for a moment, and stroll about through the little alleys between the stacks, as numerous and complicated as the twistings and turnings of a maze. You imagine yourself once more a boy playing at hide-and-seek, and revel in the hot sunshine that is pouring down upon you and bringing out the perfume of the wood. ”

“ The grass of the lawn is equally foul, and every thing of dirt and rubbish is collected under the windows in front. The gardens behind are in the same execrable state: gravel-walks over-run with moss and weeds; flower beds ornamented with statues of leaden Floras, painted Mercurys, and Dians with milk-pails. Every yard almost salutes you with some similar absurdity. The hedges are shaped into peacocks, and not unfrequently into ladies and gentlemen dancing a minuet. ”

“ On a thriving farm, such a yard as this is usually full of life and movement, but to-day it was silent and deserted. The poultry was shut up, the cattle were all in the byres, there was scarcely a sound of animal life. Both stables and cowsheds had been carefully swept across the yard. The perfect neatness which reigned in a place where everything as a rule was in disorder, the absence of stirring life, the stillness in so noisy a spot, the calm serenity of the hills, the deep shadow cast by the towering peak—everything combined to make a strong impression on the mind. ”

“ The yard may vary in size, but it must be of soil, clothed upon with grass, with a bush or a tree in it, a garden, and some animal, even if the tree has to grow in the garden and the animal has to be kept in the tree, as with one of my neighbors, who is forced to keep his bees in his single weeping willow, his yard not being large enough for his house and his hive. ”

“ Paragraph 5 - If there are three yards, one inside of the other, and one person lives in each of them, even though many people walk through the outer one, they do not render it forbidden as everyone is permitted in his own area. If there are two residents of the inner yard who did not make an eruv, they render the individuals in the middle and outer yards forbidden. ”

“ Even if the residents of the yard made an eruv for themselves, as there are household objects in the yard, it is permitted to carry objects that sit in the yard to a different yard and we do not worry that one will carry also objects in the house to a different yard or to a roof or a karpef. ”

“ The whole yard seems alive, some sifting and others shovelling the sifted soil on to the heap, while every now and then the dust-carts return to discharge their loads, and proceed again on their rounds for a fresh supply. ”

“ Nowhere does the grass spring up so industriously as in this homely yard, along the base of the stone wall and in the sheltered nooks of the buildings, and especially around the southern door-step—a locality which seems particularly favorable to its growth, for it is already tall enough to bend over and wave in the wind. ”

“ It was a common experience for us to be led by an unkept path and through a patch of weeds or across an ungrassed dooryard full of rubbish, in order to reach a so-called garden which had never spoken a civil word to the house nor got one from it. Now, the understanding is that every part of the premises, every outdoor thing on the premises—path, fence, truck-patch, stable, stable-yard, hen-yard, tennis or croquet-court—everything is either a part of the garden or is so reasonably related to it that from whatever point one views the place he beholds a single satisfactory picture. ”

“ So in England the typical holding in the cleared land of the open fields was called yard-land, or in earlier Saxon a gyrd landes, or in Latin a virgata terræ; yard, gyrd, and virga all meaning rod, and all meaning also in a secondary sense a yard measure. The holdings in the open fields were of yarded or [p172] rooded land—land measured out with a rod into acres four rods wide, each rod in width being therefore a rood, as we have seen. ”

“ There was more than a pinch of swagger in me as I made my way back to the passage overlooking the yard. Arrived there, I cautiously opened the nearest lattice and peered out. The inn-yard was dark and silent, and I was on the point of closing the window when I heard the clatter of hoofs on the stone-paving under the archway. A moment later a man on foot came in sight, and was followed into the yard by two men on horseback, one of them in charge of a led horse. ”

“ You enter by the big archway into a big open yard, the centre part of which is a wide-spreading dung-hill and reservoir. All round the yard are sheds and stables enclosing it, and facing you at the back the low, long white house, with steps leading up to the front door, which opens into the kitchen. ”

“ In the yard is a long wooden shed, with a corrugated iron roof; there are two doors on opposite sides, like barn doors, and black against the light of the farther door I can see men sitting at a table, and boy scouts running upon errands. ”

“ However, one can remove things from house to house within one yard. If the houses open to an alley and not to a yard, there are some who say that he may move things between adjacent houses. Rem"a: If he fears for theft in the yard in which he lives, he can move even from his yard to a protected yard. ”

“ In a remote corner of the yard, a small party of sedate, business-like individuals are rolling up the fleeces upon a couple of small sloping platforms, and handing them over the wall to others who are building them upon carts, to be carried to the storing-house. ”

“ A yard of land or rood of land (rood and rod are all one) is a quarter of an acre, because an acre is four rods or ‘yards’ or perches in width, and, when an acre is to be divided, it is always, and for a very good reason, divided by lines parallel to its long sides. So though the rood or yard of land may in course of time take other shapes and even become a shapeless size, it ought to be a rod or ‘yard’ in width and forty rods or one furlong in length. ”

“ A single petunia plant against a background of foliage is worth a dozen similar plants in the center of the lawn.... The open-centered yard may be a picture; the promiscuously planted yard may be a nursery or a forest. A little color scattered in here and there puts a finish to the picture. A dash of color gives spirit and character to the brook or pond, to the ledge of rocks, to the old stump, or to the pile of rubbish." The flower garden, if there is one, should be at one side of the residence or at the rear, "for it is not allowable to spoil a good lawn even with flowers." ”

“ The picture in the landscape.
The deficiency in most home grounds is not so much that there is too little planting of trees and shrubs as that this planting is meaningless. Every yard should be a picture. That is, the area should be set off from other areas, and it should have such a character that the observer catches its entire effect and purpose without stopping to analyze its parts. The yard should be one thing, one area, with every feature contributing its part to one strong and homogeneous effect. ”

“ Externally it is two hundred and thirty-five feet east and west by one hundred and ninety feet north and south. The court yard is one hundred and fifty-five feet square. The mass is also considerable, as the whole is raised on a terrace of artificial construction, by the aid of which it stands well out from the surrounding buildings. Its chief beauty consists in its court yard, which is wholly of white marble from the pavement to the summit of its domes. The interior is a bewildering maze of columns of exquisite proportions. ”

“ But if you have a place in your yard, which is near the woods or in the vicinity of trees, or by a rocky ledge—in short, if you have any place with a bit of wildness surrounding it, use this for a rockery. If your yard is just a plain, tame, civilized yard, you'd better leave the rock garden out. I know of a lady living in a city, whose backyard is a rocky ledge. ”

“ To the east is a beautiful large yard. To the west is quite a picturesque scene; the stream, running very crooked, doubles around with but narrow, high banks between, and all covered with timber, some of the largest trees I have seen in the State, some oaks four feet across, yet not one of them enough to make a rail cut, branching out a few feet from the ground. ”

“ The lay-stall, or scavengers’ yard, is of course a huge collection of the sweepings of the streets, the refuse of the markets, and the night-soil and dust of the houses, but it is not allowed to remain in a fermenting and indiscriminate mass. ”

“ So when I see a barn yard with a drain to it, I say the owner does not work it right; for how easy it is to make a yard hollow, or lowest in the middle, to receive all the wash of the sides, which will be thus kept dry for the cattle. The wash of the yard, [392] mixed with any kind of earth, or putrid straw, is the best manure in the world—yet how much do our farmers lose! In fact they do not work it right. ”

“ One's mind must be quite untrammeled to condense. Sometimes I had to rearrange several of the pictures, and straighten the books, and pull the rugs around a little, before I felt ready for the condensing process. But then I would be certain to notice something out in the yard that was not in place. We took a pride in our yard. Once outside, one thing generally led to another, [Pg 161] and in the course of time I would be pawing over stuff in the barn. ”

“ The place was either plunged in gloom or gayety. The old gardener who kept house by himself in the cottage at the back of the yard had things much his own way by far the greater part of the time.
Dr. Block and his wife lived next door to the Nethertons, and he and his wife, who were so absurd as to be very happy in each other's company, had the benefit of the beautiful yard. ”

“ He recalls to mind the division of space into yards, feet, and inches, and endeavours to apply it without a rule to the smooth surface of the water. He can judge a yard on the grass, because there is something to fix the eye on—the tall bennet or the buttercup yonder ”

“ Next to the great, came the near great: a row of pleasant cottages, each one with its little garden separated from its neighbor’s by neat whitewashed palings. After these, they approached a cottage set in a large yard and isolated as much as if it were in the country. It was well back from the street and instead of the white palings [169] of its neighbors, it boasted a box hedge about five feet high and at least three feet broad. Generations of close clipping had made this hedge as solid as a brick wall. The yard enclosed was laid out as a formal garden with box labyrinth and winding paths. ”

“ The way to the one that I know best lies through the yard of an old, old house, a yard that stands hospitably always open. It swings along by the ancient barn and turns a right angle by a worn-out field. Then you enter an old lane leading to what has been for more than a century a cow pasture. ”

“ Some of our doings, judged from the vantage point of the knoll, are very inconsistent. The spot occupied by the drying yard is the most suitable place for the new strawberry bed, and is in a direct line between the fence gap, where my fragrant things are to be, and the Rose Garden. Several of the walks that have been laid out according to the plan, when seen from this height, curve around nothing and reach nowhere. We shall presently satisfy their empty embraces with shrubs and locate various other conspicuous objects at the terminals. ”

“ It was, indeed, a stable yard, littered with much straw, which the "nark" carefully picked to walk on as noiselessly as possible, motioning me to do the same. It was a small enough yard, and dark, and when my guide very carefully opened the door of a stable I saw that that was darker still. ”

“ Thus the garage, to the right of the place we stood when the two cars went out, was only a few feet from us, but in order to reach it we turned in the opposite direction, through an opening in a low stable, passed an enclosed yard full of chickens and ducks, with a pond in the center, and a movable pen containing two sheep busily engaged in cropping the lawn, through another gateway with a crude wooden gate, into another yard with a cow, past the cow, and there, on our left, was the garage, and in it, at the back, stood a third car. ”

“ A hut should be built, containing as many apartments as the ram is desired to be used, with an alley between them, each apartment to be furnished with a feeding-box and trough in one corner, and gates or bars opening from each into the alley, and at each end of the alley. Adjoining these apartments, a yard should be inclosed, of size just sufficient to hold the flock of breeding ewes. ”

“ Villages were huddled at the edges of woods, and occasionally in the midst of the cultivated area. Their houses, which were not arranged on a regular plan, were usually large stone structures, the farm yard, with tools, implements, manure and compost heaps, occupying a kind of court at the rear. ”

“ To each yard-land belonged a house and farmyard, 24 to 283/4 acres of arable land, a share in the commonable meadows which for each occupier came to some 8 acres, also the right to turn out 8 oxen or cows, or 6 horses and 40 sheep on to the common pasture. ”