The influence of the physical environment is worthy of brief notice. Between one and another of the three neighborhoods lie stretches of land, nearly a mile wide, valued less highly than that on which the clusters of houses stand. In the days before the railroad, the population passed over this territory to the centers of the community in the three stores at Toffey's, Akin's and Muritt's places, and to the Meeting House. But with the necessity of driving westward to the railway, the stretches of road passing poorer land had diminished use, and the clusters of households, once closely related, ceased to interchange reactions and services; so a segregation of neighborhoods began, which is increasing with time. The list of members of the Meeting in Appendix A, and that of customers of one of the stores in Appendix B, will serve to show the extent of the community, religious and economic, in the eighteenth century. A steady shrinkage has drawn in the margins of this communal life. At this date Quaker Hill receives no tribute from any outer territory; and might be confined to the limits of "Quaker Hill Proper," as some indeed call the "Middle Distance." The present writer, while not so limiting the Hill, has omitted both Burch Hill to the south and the stretches toward Webatuck to the north, which lie in other towns. Just a word about neighborhood character. There is no especial character localized in the Wing's Corners neighborhood. The central territory has been fully described in this book, and especially in the chapters on "The Common Mind," and "Practical Differences and Resemblances." "The North End" is the most isolated of any neighborhood included within the Hill population. Its families are less directly derived from Quaker stock. The older Quaker families once living there have disappeared. It is a genial, kindly, chatty neighborhood, without the exalted sense of past importance or of present day prestige which affects the manners of "Quaker Hill Proper." It has, moreover, none of the Irish-American residents, and until recently no New York families. The seven family groups resident in these fifteen houses have been long acquainted, and have become used to one another. A kindly, tolerant feeling prevails. Gossip is not forbidden. Standards of conduct are not stretched upon high ideals, and a preference for enjoyments shows itself in a greater leisure and a laxer industry than in the central portion of the Hill.