THE PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION IN RURAL TASTE. 



13 



within will soon open them. The bark, by 

 remaining on, protects the tree from the 

 sun, and leaves it in a more natural and 

 healthy state. I should advise performing 

 the operation when the tree is from three 

 to five inches in diameter. Two minutes 



to a tree is all the time necessary for the 

 work. I have not had a tree burst for more 

 than twenty years, although I have had 

 from five to fifteen growing all that time. 



R. Newton. 



Wercester, Mass., 1S49. 



ON THE PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION IN RURAL TASTE. 

 BY W., LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS. 



Venturing to remark lately, in a mixed 

 company, that suggestion was the soul of 

 all interior harmony in houses and gar- 

 dens, as well as in the fine arts, and that 

 the possessor should suggest his house, so 

 that there should be an open fitness to the 

 eyes of all men: — "And pray, sir, may I 

 ask, what sort of a house do I suggest ? " 

 said a square built, matter-of-fact, prosaic 

 gentleman, in a high tone of banter, raising 

 a laugh at my expense ; so that I could not 

 avoid replying, trusting to instinct. " You, 

 sir, suggest to me a red brick house, with 

 solid walls, square, gable to the road, the 

 window sills all painted white, with a white 

 picket fence, and four cherry trees in front." 

 " Sir," said my man, *' you are a conjuror, 

 and, if you will, shall draft a house for 

 me." It tickled my fancy to follow out my 

 principle of suggestion from step to step, 

 to see how far it would hold good, so that I 

 felt sure that any man of sense could avoid 

 all those mistakes in taste so -frequently 

 made, by asking in regard to each feature 

 in succession, — " what is there in my cha- 

 racter, or circumstances, in the nature of my 

 grounds, or the condition of the country about, 

 to suggest or demand such a feature ?" 



It may be objected, that the suggestion 

 to the truly cultivated taste would be a 

 different one from that to the probable 

 owner ; but, I reply, the mere putting the 



question implies a reference to a certain 

 absolute standard, though a correct taste 

 would undoubtedly answer the question 

 most satisfactorily. 



When I see that farmer X. has a jimpy 

 clap-board-Gothic cottage, springing up in 

 the midst of his unsheltered farm ; and 

 when I know that the good man would 

 never have dreamed of it without the as- 

 sistance of his wife and daughter, nor 

 they, if they had known the fitting and 

 proper, I may be a little out of patience ; 

 but I comfort myself with this electric spread 

 of ideas among us. A clever man has only 

 to publish a clever book, and in five years' 

 time we read his name on ever)' hill side 

 through New-England. This assures us, 

 that in another generation we shall read it 

 in a more honorable, or rather, more har- 

 monious form. 



I wish we had a type of farm-house, that 

 might be modified to a true expression of 

 the ideal of a farm. The farm suggests 

 labor, earnestness, repose. We think of it 

 as neither smart nor busy, brisk nor money- 

 making ; but dignified, earnest, sincere. 

 The English ideal, all farmery and piggery, 

 all sheep and turnips, is, to our fancy, grow- 

 ing too commercial ; at all events, it is a 

 manufactory — what our farms are not, — 

 perhaps never wiU be. The farmer with 

 us, is he who stands where he is, and 



