Colonial and U.S. [f. YARD sb.1]
1. trans. To inclose (cattle, etc.) in a yard. Also with up.
1828–32. Webster, Yard, v.t., to confine cattle to the yard; as, to yard cows. (A farmer’s word.)
1840. Buel, Farmer’s Comp., 68. The cattle should be kept constantly yarded in winter.
1855. Poultry Chron., III. 201. An old Creeper hen that had been yarded with the Chittagong rooster.
1859. H. Kingsley, G. Hamlyn, xxxi. Well, lad, suppose we yard these rams?
1865. [see ROUND v.1 5 f].
1885. Finch-Hatton, Advance Australia!, 83. Seven or eight men were yarding up a mob of cattle.
b. To store up (wood) in a yard.
1878. Lumberman’s Gaz., Jan., 12. The logs which have been yarded or piled up in the woods.
1903. Windsor Mag., Sept., 405/2. They [sc. beavers] commence to build their houses and yard-up wood for the winter in September.
c. To shoot deer in their yards.
a. 1891. Tribune Bk. Sports, 432 (Cent. Dict.). ‘Pot-hunters’ have other methods of shooting the Adirondack deer, such as yarding and establishing salt licks.
2. intr. Of moose, etc.: To resort to winter quarters (see YARD sb.1 5). Also with up.
1852. H. W. Herbert, Field Sports (ed. 4), II. 199. Here it [sc. the moose] still breeds, and yards in winter.
1874. W. Stamer, Gentl. Emigrant, I. 297. The caribou do not yard. They winter it out on the bogs.
1894. Madison Grant, in Century Mag., Jan., 354/2. They [moose] do not, properly speaking, yard up until the deep snow comes.
