The houses were almost invariably inclosed with a picket or board fence, with a small yard in front. Shade and ornamental trees were not in much repute. All around lay the "boundless contiguity of shade;" but it awakened no poetic sentiment. To them it had been a standing menace, which had cost the expenditure of their best energies, year after year, to push further and further back. The time had not come for ornamenting their grounds and fields with shrubs and trees, unless they could minister to their comfort in a more substantial way. The gardens were generally well supplied with currant and gooseberry bushes. Pear, plum and cherry trees, as well as the orchard itself, were close at hand. Raspberries and strawberries were abundant in every new clearing. The sap-bush furnished the sugar and maple molasses. So that most of the requisites for good living were within easy hail. The first concern of a thrifty farmer was to possess a large barn, with out-houses or sheds attached for his hay and straw, and for the protection of his stock during the cold and stormy weather of fall and winter. Lumber cost him nothing, save the labour of getting it out. There was, therefore, but little to prevent him from having plenty of room in which to house his crops, and as the process of threshing was slow it necessitated more space than is required now. The granary, pig- pen and corncrib were usually separate. The number and extent of buildings on a flourishing homestead, inclosed with strong board fences, covered a wide area, but the barns, with their enormous peaked roofs, and the houses, with their dormer windows looking out from their steep sides, have nearly all disappeared, or have been transformed into more modern shape.