66 



CRITIQUE ON THE JUNE HORTICULTURIST. 



be country residences now. I have known a 

 man to spend a thousand dollars in blasting 

 away a great cluster of rock, and turning off 

 a delicious and chrystal brook from his lawn, 

 where the same rock and the same brook, with 

 ten dollars worth of vines and shrubbery 

 planted about them, were worth, in rural ef- 

 fect, all the frippery put together, which he 

 had built there at an expense of ten thousand. 

 Strange that people going into the country for 

 a summer's stay, can't be content with the 

 country alone, but make themselves and all 

 about them miserable, because in their fool- 

 ish pride, they will take the city and its 

 nonsense along with them ! Why, my good 

 friends, the very object of getting into the 

 country at all, is to ruralize — to repose — to 

 keep off the dust, and suffocation, and tur- 

 moil, and pestilence of the city — to pick the 

 wild huckleberries and blackberries, and eat 

 them in your bread and milk, and make pies 

 and puddings of them ; to feed your ducks 

 and chickens, and enjoy your fruits and gar- 

 dens ; and better than all, to turn the child- 

 ren out into the lawn, or the paddock — to 

 catch the pony and ride bare-back if they 

 choose to, scampering boys and girls together 

 over the pasture ! Then let the governess be 

 dismissed for a summer's visit to her own 

 friends. She will be all the fresher and more 

 elastic in spirit for the next winter's cam- 

 paign with the young daughters, who, in 

 their buoyant romping over the fields, will 

 expand their chests and dilate their lungs — 

 •all the stouter for Mesdames "VValtz-enwack 

 and Polka-lair to exercise their ingenuity up- 

 on, in torturing and compressing them into the 

 fashionable wasp dimension when they " come 

 out." And if your summer retreat be in a 

 farming neighborhood, turn the boys for a few 

 weeks into the district school with the farm- 

 ers' children. Let them play ball, trundle 

 hoops, fly kites, run foot races, pitch quoits. 

 Farmers' boys are usually smart at such play, 



and if yours should beat them in the games, 

 'twould be a trophy in their caps. Let them 

 swim in the river too, fish for dace and chubs 

 in the brook, or bob for eels in the mill-pond. 

 All these will do your boys no harm — even if 

 in wrestling with the other youngsters they 

 tear their jackets, and dirty their faces in their 

 rough play. Ten to one, these same tow- 

 headed farmers' boys will one day sail your 

 ships, be the partners of your sons in busi- 

 ness, or mayhap, marry your daughters, and 

 you like them all the better that their whole- 

 some stamina was acquired in the pure air of 

 a country life. 



Aye, and put yourselves at once on good 

 terms with your quiet country neighbors. Al- 

 though they be plain people, they possess kind 

 hearts and many virtues, and will do you 

 many a good turn ; and as you treat them, 

 will you, in their estimation, be " the best 

 kind of city folks," or mere "stick-ups." How 

 many pleasant, social afternoon and evening 

 visits do sensible people in their summer so- 

 journings make among their farmer neighbors, 

 who impart, in their own way, quite as much 

 instruction and pleasure as is given in return 

 by those who profess to be better informed ! 

 And again, I have known even very good sort 

 of city folks, when i7i the city, wonderfully 

 fretted at the rudeness of their country neigh- 

 bors, because they would not at first sight 

 submit to their own arrogant pretensions of a 

 higher gentility, and in their intercourse ac- 

 knowledge a superior caste in their new neigh- 

 bors, which they were utter strangers to, and 

 had, most properly, never been taught to ad- 

 mire ; thus making themselves wretched be- 

 cause of a sheer misunderstanding of human 

 nature. 



But the age of poetry is gone, and I sup- 

 pose with the new fashions and the rail-roads, 

 we are hereafter to have, in the new city-vil- 

 lages which are to be built upon them for sum- 

 mer resort, rectangular streets, and fancy hou- 



