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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 BY 
 LUCY M SALMON 
 
 POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK 
 1915 
 
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 First impression, 1912 
 Second impression, 1915 
 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 Hope for a summer in Europe vanished into 
 the dim background of "next year" while dis- 
 couragement occupied the foreground. Where 
 forsooth could one get new ideas except in Europe, 
 where find a library outside of London or Paris, 
 where study historical records but in foreign 
 archives, where see the results of archselogical 
 discoveries outside of European museums, where 
 harvest stores of historical knowledge except in 
 foreign fields f Winter quarters for nine months 
 at home were endurable for the sake of three 
 months of activity in other lands, but hibernation 
 prolonged to twenty-one months, — that was un- 
 thinkable. The calendar has indeed always 
 seemed hopelessly wrong, — were not the three 
 months in Europe a full year of mental life, and 
 did not the nine months of constant draft on men- 
 tal resources at home shrink to a paltry week of 
 growth"? Did not three months of acquisition in 
 Europe leave one rich, while nine months of con- 
 stant depletion of mental capital at home left one 
 bankrupt? If "fifty years of Europe were better 
 than a cycle of Cathay," did it not follow that 
 one-fourth of a year in Europe was better than 
 three-fourths of a year anywhere else? It was 
 all a tangle that might possibly have been straight- 
 ened out after a summer abroad, but in June it 
 was a hopeless snarl. 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 But the chance question of a friend put Alad- 
 din's lamp in our hands and opened up before our 
 eyes as large an undiscovered world as could be 
 found in seven kingdoms. She had asked how she 
 could study history in a back yard, and, lo, the 
 whole past opened up at our door! Why search 
 for hid treasure abroad when the history of the 
 world was spread out in the back yard? Perish 
 the thought that we had ever sought knowledge 
 elsewhere, — we would study historical records in 
 a garden seat, and search for archselogical re- 
 mains in the summer house. If Mahomet could 
 not go to the mountain, the mountain could sum- 
 mer in the back yard. The world was still ours 
 to explore! 
 
 Our back yard is a parallelogram about thirty 
 feet wide and four times as long. On one of the 
 long sides a board fence separates it from the ad- 
 joining property and in that direction a series of 
 fences marks the divisions of private property. 
 On the other side of our yard, our kindly land- 
 lord and a genial neighbor agreed to take down 
 the division fence between the two places, other 
 neighbors on that side have followed their exam- 
 ple, and thus a green park extends in the rear of 
 the block half way to the corner. At the lower end 
 of the yard, a very high board fence separates 
 our yard from the one that joins it back-to-back 
 and conceals from our view the vegetable garden 
 of the neighbor in our rear. 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 Now it seems a very simple, commonplace 
 thing to have a fence, or not to have a fence, and 
 the question is apparently one to be decided by 
 the common consent of the two adjacent property 
 holders. If a fence is built, it means presumably 
 that the property owners place a high value on 
 privacy and seclusion, that they do not care for 
 the unsought visits of children, that they do not 
 wish to expose their flowers, their fruit, and their 
 vegetables to the ravages of those too lazy to 
 plant their own gardens, but not too lazy to profit 
 by the industry of others, that they seek pro- 
 tection from the dogs, pigs, goats, and cows that 
 in some localities still have the freedom of the 
 town and in a not remote past had it in all. If 
 the fence is surmounted by a row of spikes, it in- 
 dicates not simply an aversion to certain unde- 
 sirable conditions, but a positive fear of disagree- 
 able visitors and of dangerous intruders, coupled 
 with serious doubts about the enforcement of the 
 law on the part of those charged with that duty. 
 If a high hedge is selected to mark the bound- 
 ary lines, it suggests not only a love of retire- 
 ment and contemplation, but a desire for protec- 
 tion from dust while currents of air are not en- 
 tirely shut off. The hedge also becomes a screen 
 that separates the prosaic vegetable garden from 
 the lawn or the flower beds. If, however, the 
 hedge is placed behind a high stone wall, then in- 
 deed are all passers-by impressed with the love 
 of solitude that characterizes the occupants of 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 the place. The invitation "to loaf and invite the 
 soul" becomes esoteric not exoteric, and whoever 
 braves the forbidding wall and hedge and enters 
 within, feels himself a candidate for the medal 
 awarded the doer of "the bravest deed ever 
 done." 
 
 If, on the other hand, no fence is built, or one 
 already built is taken down, it may indicate a dis- 
 regard of privacy and a desire to live more or less 
 in the public eye, it may be an index of aesthetic 
 ideals, or it may imply a growing desire to sub- 
 ordinate personal advantage to public good, or 
 an appreciation of how much is gained by neigh- 
 bors who have interests in common rather than 
 mutually repellant characteristics. The absence 
 of a fence shows that laws are both made and en- 
 forced restraining cattle from running at large, — 
 what community of interest once demanded, com- 
 munity of interest now forbids. 
 
 It is thus apparently a matter of option be- 
 tween neighbors whether or not property rights 
 are indicated by an outward, visible symbol, and 
 it seems equally a matter of option whether that 
 symbol of private ownership shall take the form 
 of a fence, a hedge, or a wall, or any combination 
 of these three forms of enclosure. Moreover, it 
 seems again a matter of option what variety of 
 material is to be used in constructing the division- 
 marker. The wall may be of brick because brick 
 is cheap, or because it harmonizes with the archi- 
 tecture of the house and with its other settings; 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 it may be of stone because the land needed clear- 
 ing, or because the owner was able to gratify his 
 taste and import stone from a distance. The 
 material of which the dividing wall is built may 
 indicate either one of the two extremes of neces- 
 sity or of luxury, of resourcefulness of ideas or 
 of abundance of means. 
 
 The fence in its turn may be a record of pioneer 
 days when the first settlers cleared the forests 
 and the stump fence became a by-product; the 
 zig-zag rail fence is a later development of pioneer 
 life, while the plain board fence and the picket 
 fence were the plebeian and the patrician divisions 
 between village lots. The lattice fence meant 
 honeysuckle vines, while the iron fence meant the 
 portly, prosperous merchant who was always up- 
 to-date. The introduction of the barbed wire 
 fence indicated the ravages that had been made 
 on the timber supply of the country, while legis- 
 lation against the use of barbed wire and the sub- 
 stitution for it of woven wire and other forms of 
 wire fencing is a record of growing humanitarian- 
 ism and the care that the state is coming to take 
 for the protection of both animals and men. The 
 still further depletion of the timber supply is 
 recorded in the displacement of the wooden fence 
 post by the concrete post, and thus the gamut is 
 complete from a fence entirely of timber in some 
 stage of development to a fence constructed with- 
 out any timber whatsoever. 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 The character of the hedge as marking the di- 
 vision line is determined by its secondary object. 
 Is this secondary object protection against the 
 free passage of animals, the osage orange is 
 called into requisition ; is the land low and marshy 
 and does it demand support, the willow hedge is 
 set out ; if wind and dust are special enemies, the 
 hedge of evergreens results ; if privacy is sought, 
 the privet, the box, and the arbor vitse are in 
 demand; if varied beauty is the ideal, the bar- 
 berry is planted. The hedge, to a greater extent 
 than the wall and the fence, not only serves as 
 a line of demarcation, but it also renders a second- 
 ary service of beauty scarcely less important 
 than its primary one of indicating boundary 
 lines. 
 
 But, after all, wall and fence and hedge are but 
 outward symbols of a crude method of marking 
 private ownership. "The things that are seen 
 are temporal, but the things that are unseen are 
 eternal." The real boundary lines have been 
 long ago established by the theodolite of the sur- 
 veyor and they have been recorded in the office 
 of the county clerk in the county court house. 
 Walls, fences, and hedges of every form and 
 variety known to man may be set up, and taken 
 down, but the surveyor's instruments and the re- 
 corded deeds are a court from whose decisions 
 no appeal can be taken. 
 
 The unpretentious plain board fence that sepa- 
 rates us from one of our neighbors has intro- 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 duced us to the whole question of methods of 
 marking boundary lines, to the complicated sub- 
 ject of surveying that has in the beginning deter- 
 mined where these boundary lines are to run, 
 and to an elaborate legal system that has been 
 developed for the purpose of establishing and 
 maintaining the claims of rightful ownership. 
 
 On the other side of our back yard, there is no 
 indication of private ownership of property, — 
 neither wall, nor fence, nor hedge separates us 
 from our neighbor's apple-trees and rhubarb, we 
 share his garden seats and his lawn swing, and we 
 in turn offer him the hospitality of our berry 
 bushes, our grape vines, and our summer house. 
 We know indeed that the boundary line has been 
 measured to the fraction of an inch and that its 
 location has been duly described in the deeds of 
 ownership of the two adjacent properties, and 
 that these deeds are presumably deposited in two 
 respective safe deposit boxes in one of the city 
 banks. But as long as no fence obtrudes itself 
 with its insistence on private ownership, we shall 
 enjoy the fiction of joint ownership with our 
 neighbor of all the treasures of two back yards. 
 The fence means isolation, separation, and lack 
 of common interest; the absence of the fence 
 means community life, mutual aid, toleration, and 
 joint pleasures and opportunities. 
 
 Who made the first fence and who gave him the 
 right to make that fence ? "Ah there 's the rub ! ' ' 
 If the fence on one side of our back yard has in- 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 troduced us to the realms of higher mathematics 
 by way of the surveyor's line and compass, and 
 to the Torrens system of recording deeds by way 
 of the courthouse on the corner, and to the ques- 
 tion of public guardianship of personal property 
 by way of the safe deposit box in the bank, the 
 absence of a fence on the other side has brought 
 us face to face with a question that antedates all 
 the written records of history. Did private owner- 
 ship of land precede communal ownership, or 
 was land held in common and did enclosure fol- 
 low? Over this question battles on paper have 
 been lost and won, reputations made and shatter- 
 ed, and the final word in regard to it said with 
 each and every recurring discussion of the sub- 
 ject. With a fence on two sides and no fence on 
 the other two sides, our back yard maintains a 
 discreet impartiality and refuses to commit itself 
 on the merits of the controversy. 
 
 Our back yard has nothing that even by cour- 
 tesy could be called a garden, — a few spring bulbs 
 blossom in the lawn, a row of rosebushes remind 
 us when June comes, bunches of old-fashioned 
 artemisias announce the arrival of autumn, a 
 trumpet vine all but conceals a rustic summer 
 house, honeysuckles cover the lower branches of 
 a mulberry tree, berry bushes and morning glories 
 conceal in summer the long dividing fence, a high 
 trellis for grape vines is at the lower end of the 
 yard, immediately in front of the high division 
 fence covered with woodbine. A long narrow 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 strip of lawn connects the back yard proper with 
 a passage-way that leads to a bit of lawn in front 
 of the house where a rose of Sharon and an hy- 
 drangea are found and a wistaria that climbs 
 over the front porch. A few spring flowering 
 shrubs are planted along this very narrow strip 
 of grass that connects the back yard with the pas- 
 sage-way, and a few annuals blossom for us 
 Wherever it is convenient to drop the seed in the 
 spring. An occasional weed persistently comes up 
 every year, apparently rather not to be forgotten 
 than to be obnoxiously obtrusive. 
 
 It all seems very simple and commonplace and 
 there is nothing that at first indicates its cosmo- 
 politan character. But a study of genealogy re- 
 veals many surprising and interesting family re- 
 lationships. The crocus comes from the Levant, 
 the hyacinth and the narcissus bear Greek names, 
 the daffodil is a native of England, the tulip in 
 its name is allied with Turkey and in its history 
 with Holland, the fleur-de-lis is the insignia of 
 France and also of Florence, our lilac is Persian, 
 the wistaria is Japanese, the asters Chinese, the 
 rose of Sharon suggests Palestine, the ubiquitous 
 thistle is Scotch, while cosmos in its name con- 
 nects us with the order and harmony of the whole 
 created universe. Could the nations of the world 
 live together as peacefully as do their represen- 
 tatives in our back yard, international peace 
 would be already an accomplished fact. 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 But our flowers and shrubs and vines bring us 
 into contact not only with the nations of the world 
 in this very concrete form, but they introduce us 
 to the world-old union and conflict of realism and 
 idealism, the literal and the imaginative. Realism 
 confronts us in the names of the morning glory, 
 the trumpet vine, the honeysuckle, and the tulip, 
 while imagination and idealism give us the helio- 
 trope, the hydrangea, the narcissus, and the hya- 
 cinth. Yet it is the realism of the Greek that 
 crops out in the names of the heliotrope and the 
 hydrangea while it undergoes a sea-change in be- 
 coming for us words of the imagination and ideal- 
 ism. Is it possible that the realism of one be- 
 comes the idealism of another? What if all our 
 realism has its imaginative side and what if our 
 idealism has its roots in realism? 
 
 We have never quite understood why there 
 should be a mulberry tree in our back yard, but 
 there it is and it makes a pleasant connection for 
 us with that doughty Dutch patroon, Kiliaen Van 
 Rensselaer. He never saw the vast estates on 
 the Hudson to which his name was given, but he 
 managed the territory and the colony in his Am- 
 sterdam office at a distance of more than three 
 thousand miles in space and four months' distance 
 in time. Among other minute instructions sent 
 out to his agent is one to the effect that he should 
 be on the look-out for silkworms since they are 
 likely to be found where there are mulberry trees. 
 Whether the agent found the silkworms or not, 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 the papers of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer do not state, 
 but we infer that he may not have done so since 
 we have been on the look-out for silkworms for 
 some years, and while in our search we have en- 
 countered fireflies, mosquitoes, June bugs, and 
 bats, no silkworms have been discovered. 
 
 Our back yard does not in truth have a Lom- 
 bardy poplar, but it so naturally belongs there 
 that we often look at a certain spot and lo, the 
 tree is there. The Lombardy poplar was the em- 
 blem of democracy in the struggle between Lom- 
 bardy and Austria and the very derivation of its 
 name from populus gives it a democratic lineage. 
 If princes and potentates take the rose and the lily 
 as emblems of their authority, why should not 
 humble social democrats take the Lombardy pop- 
 lar with its double democratic lineage as the badge 
 of their individual beliefs 1 And if the tree is not 
 in reality in our back yard, but is there in spirit, 
 is it not in the end the same? 
 
 Nor does our back yard number among it's 
 assets a Norway maple. Yet we have claimed 
 kinship also with this. If at times we are all 
 cowards, are there not other times when the blood 
 of the vikings flows in our veins? If at times 
 inertia keeps us in our accustomed places, are 
 there not many more times when the zest for ex- 
 ploring the undiscovered realms of knowledge 
 takes us into far countries? Our Norway maple 
 links us with the venturesome voyagers of old who 
 were ever seeking new paths across the track- 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 less seas and it thus opens up to us the whole 
 world of knowledge for discovery and explora- 
 tion. The cherry-tree outside of our back window 
 is not ours, — the robins take the fruit, other birds 
 build their nests in its branches, winter claims 
 its foliage, and we have no special feeling of 
 affection for it ; it is a plain, prosaic cherry-tree, 
 doubtless with admirable qualities, but it is a 
 stranger to us. But our blood tingles with the 
 glimpse of our democratic Lombardy poplar and 
 our venturesome Norway maple. These bloom for 
 us in perennial youth. 
 
 The grapevines at the lower end of the yard 
 are not in themselves real additions to the place, — 
 the grapes rarely ripen, and when they do ripen 
 they are small and tasteless. It is not for the sake 
 of what they are, but for the sake of what they 
 suggest, that every year we mend the trellis and 
 trim the vines, — for the grapevines connect us 
 with the great revolutionary movement in west- 
 ern Europe and put us in touch with the company 
 of young men who came to this country to seek 
 the political liberty they had missed in their 
 native land. Among the number was a young 
 German who settled in northern Iowa, edited a 
 newspaper for a livelihood, and cultivated grapes 
 for recreation. Coming from the valley of the 
 Ehine where the vines were grown on poles 
 rather than on trellises, he became an ardent ad- 
 vocate of the advantages of the single-pole method 
 of grapevine culture, and the merits of his grapes 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 attested individually the virtues of his theory. 
 But his theory of grape cultivation and the zest 
 with which he advocated it were after all but an 
 outlet for a genuine love of political liberty and 
 social individualism, — traits that characterized 
 his family, another branch of which had given to 
 the cause of liberty the Tyrolese patriot, Andreas 
 Hofer. If we tend our grapevines and do not re- 
 sent their thankless return for the care lavished 
 on them, it is because we see behind them the Ger- 
 man Revolution of 1848-1849 and back of that the 
 Tyrolese uprising of 1809, and because our sym- 
 pathies and interests are with the side that met 
 temporary defeat in the struggle for political 
 equality. 
 
 The English ivy does not thrive in our climate, 
 but it sometimes maintains a precarious existence 
 where it does not grow luxuriantly, and our back 
 yard counts as its greatest treasure a modest 
 vine grown from a slip taken from the home of 
 Maria Mitchell at Nantucket. When discourage- 
 ment comes and nothing seems quite worth while, 
 the ivy becomes a veritable tent of Pari-Banou and 
 quickly we are at her island home, we discover 
 with her the famous comet that bears her name, 
 we share her interests and her work, we sit in her 
 observatory and listen to "the music of the 
 spheres, ' ' and behold, all things are made new. 
 
 Our back yard has little in the way of furniture, 
 but that little is an interesting record of the 
 changes that have come even in our own day in 
 
 15 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 the direction of greater naturalness and a more 
 normal, healthy, wholesome life. The old love 
 of fashionable adornment that found expression 
 in iron dogs, stone deer, and garden statuary, 
 and the love of ostentatious display that found an 
 outlet in the importation of Italian seats, French 
 fountains and Spanish vases have given place to 
 a genuine interest in out-of-door life, healthful 
 exercise, and rational recreation. The old play 
 house where the children quietly amused them- 
 selves with toys and dolls has given place to the 
 sand box, the tent, the cart, and the wheel, and the 
 diminutive automobile. Tennis and croquet are 
 possible even in a restricted space, and the bicycle 
 is again coming into its own. The hammock, the 
 garden bench, the seat with protecting awning, 
 and the summer house all show the growing love 
 of fresh air, and the appreciation of the back 
 yard as a place for rest and refreshment. The 
 change has extended even to animal life, — the 
 artificial bird house has disappeared and the birds 
 seek their own location, while the dog kennel has 
 vanished with the banishment of the large dog 
 to the country. 
 
 Industrial changes are recorded in our back 
 yard. Once the weekly laundry was displayed on 
 lines strung between posts, then came the clothes 
 reel, and now both have disappeared since the 
 laundry is done out of the house. But our back 
 yard joins back-to-back the yards of the two- 
 family houses on the next street, and now we see, 
 
 16 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 is it every day in the week? the line and pulley 
 that show that the domestic "wash" is done in the 
 limited space afforded by flat and tenement and 
 apartment. Is there some mal-adjustment some- 
 where that demands that laundry work must be 
 done in a space inadequate for it, while it is sent 
 out of a house that has abundance of room for 
 doing it? "Will sometime the record show that 
 laundry work is everywhere taken out of the indi- 
 vidual flat, tenement, apartment, house, mansion, 
 palace, and done under perfect sanitary and eco- 
 nomic conditions? 
 
 Electric wires running in our back window show 
 the cooling of the kitchen by an electric fan and 
 suggest the future possibilities of the substitution 
 of electricity for gas in lighting and in summer 
 cooking. 
 
 The growing interest in sanitation has also left 
 its record in our back yard. A disused cistern 
 means an improved municipal water supply and 
 the galvanized iron can with tight fitting cover 
 indicates that garbage is collected by the city, 
 though the pile of ashes in the back yard of one 
 neighbor and the mound of rubbish in that of 
 another suggest fields for municipal activity as 
 yet but partially entered. The rain-water barrel 
 in the back yard of a friend, with its coat of kero- 
 sene, suggests new ideas of sanitation and the 
 mosquito. 
 
 Our back yard has a modest outlook over the 
 back yards of our neighbors and in one we see 
 
 17 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 the unused conservatory of a fine old place, — un- 
 used, not because the flowers are loved less than 
 formerly, but rather perhaps because they are 
 more universally loved. The greenhouses of the 
 florist have superseded the conservatory of the 
 private owner, outside of large country estates, 
 and former luxuries have become democratic 
 necessities. The back yard of another neighbor 
 has a bed of herbs, apparently containing every 
 variety known to the botanist, — a luxury to-day, 
 but an interesting record of past time when every 
 housewife of necessity grew her own herbs for 
 savory flavorings and for the family medicine 
 closet. The spring flowers and early vegetables 
 of another back yard suggest the annual flitting of 
 our neighbor and the summer flowers and late 
 vegetables that await them at their country home. 
 The orderly tool house of still another neighbor, 
 with its lawn mower and roller, its variety of gar- 
 den tools, and its hose reel all indicate the grow- 
 ing attention paid to the care of lawns, gardens, 
 and yards, though the opposite tendency is indi- 
 cated in the case of a neighbor who thinks that his 
 proximity to a park frees him from the necessity 
 of troubling about a back yard at all. 
 
 Our back yard has never had a barn or a stable, 
 but as we look up and down the yards on the block 
 we see recorded the passing of the stable and the 
 coming of the garage, and not only the simple 
 garage for the automobile, but the more elaborate 
 one with ' ' two rooms and a bath" for the chauffeur 
 
 18 
 
HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 records the ever-ascending standard of living for 
 employees as well as for employer. Not far away 
 a single old-fashioned barn remains with its 
 record of a cow as well as of a horse once kept, 
 and with its chicken coop attached. If the family 
 horse and carriage has become an automobile, if 
 the family cow has been removed to the dairy 
 farm, and the family chickens now lay their eggs 
 on a poultry farm, will not the family washtub in 
 time develop into the country laundry f 
 
 So our back yard has the records of all the 
 ages within its narrow enclosure. Prehistoric 
 questions of the ownership of land lie in our 
 fences, classical mythology blossoms in our bulbs, 
 the discovery of a new world rises in our Norway 
 maple, affection for mother country blooms in 
 daffodil and thistle, the Dutch "West India Com- 
 pany lives in our mulberry tree, new trade routes 
 are opened up in our lilies, commercial treaties 
 are signed in our shrubs, Italian independence 
 shimmers in our Lombardy poplar, political lib- 
 erty and the downfall of tyrants climb over our 
 grape trellis, and international peace is pro- 
 claimed in all that grows within our domain. 
 
 Sanitation is recorded in our garbage can, 
 municipal improvement in our disused cistern, 
 higher standards of living in the garage, educa- 
 tion in the sand box, wholesome recreation in the 
 tennis court, love of fresh air in the garden seat, 
 summer migration in the abandoned garden, 
 housing problems in laundry line and pulley, and 
 
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HISTORY IN A BACK YARD 
 
 progress in invention in electric wires. Genealogy 
 is concealed in our flowers and biography in our 
 vines; democracy lives in our trees and patriot- 
 ism thrives in our weeds; economic theory lifts 
 up its head in the single tax on land and economic 
 research delves into enclosures, while over all 
 broods the spirit of historical investigation. 
 
 What are the treasures of Europe in compari- 
 son with the wealth of the whole world that is 
 ours by the right of eminent domain when claimed 
 from the back steps? 
 
 The advantages of studying history in a back 
 yard are manifold. Neither hot sun, nor pouring 
 rain, nor driving winds interfere with the pursuit 
 of knowledge on a back porch. No impertinent 
 guides must be placated with fees, no taxicabs de- 
 plete our pocketbooks, no Baedeker proclaims us 
 tourists, no foreigners practice their English on 
 us, no one jeers at our efforts to speak an un- 
 known tongue, no one gives us the wrong change 
 or obsolete coins, rooms and meals are "just as 
 good as they are at home." If work presses, or 
 the bank fails, or a sprained ankle comes, or un- 
 expected demands on time arise, — seek the rec- 
 ords of history in the back yard. 
 
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