HOMES NEAR TO NATURE 



93 



AT THE PICTURESQUE BACK DOOR OF THE COUNTRY HOME. 



orably influence public opinion is 

 Air. Fitch A. Hoyt of Stamford, Con- 

 necticut, who has reluctantly permitted 

 me to tell of his nature interests, and 

 solely because I have argued as skill- 

 fully as I could that what nature has 

 been to him as a business man and in 

 his retirement from business must be 

 helpful to others. The extent to which 

 he is a naturalist is unknown even in 

 his own town, to his own family, and 

 possibly, to himself. Perhaps I may 

 personally take some little credit for 

 having "discovered" him, as I have 

 done in the sense in which during 

 recent years I have discovered that I 

 was a better naturalist in my boyhood 

 than I am now. 



Mr. Hoyt for many years conducted 

 one of the largest grocery establish- 

 ments in Stamford. He entered his 

 father's store at the age of twelve 

 years, and I tried by questioning him 

 to get material to prove one of my 

 pet theories that in these later years 

 the nature-loving instinct of the boy 

 had returned or been revived, but I 

 failed. He had never had a country 



boy's experience the remembrance of 

 which so many of us are fond of cher- 

 ishing as one of the greatest resources 

 of advancing years. But he had the 

 facts which have helped me to formu- 

 late another and better theory, that in 

 mature years, when in full possession 

 of the adult's powers of mind and 

 body, there has come to him all the 

 charm of a boy's original relation to 

 nature, all the delights of discovery in 

 an enchanted land, which he, unlike 

 the rest of us, never knew. 



About twelve years ago, shortly 

 before disposing of his long estab- 

 lished business, Mr. Hoyt built a log 

 cabin in the primitive woods at the 

 north of Stamford and, as thousands 

 of others have elsewhere done, went 

 there for several years as to a place 

 of rest for himself, his family and his 

 friends. But if this were all, there 

 would be no excuse for the presence of 

 this article in The Guide TO NATURE. 



A few years ago the woods revealed 

 themselves to him. Thoreau said he 

 always felt alarmed if he walked a mile 

 in the forests without entering them. 



