THE 



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. III. 



JUNE, 1849. 



No. 12. 



*' If you, or any man of taste, wish to 

 bave a fit of the blues, let him come 



to the village of . I have just settled 



here ; and all ray ideas of rural beauty 

 have been put to flight by what I see around 

 me every day. Old wooden houses out of 

 repair, and looking ricketty and dejected; 

 new wooden houses distressingly lean in 

 their proportions, chalky white in their 

 clap-boards, and spiriachy green in their 

 blinds. The church is absolutely hide- 

 ous, — a long box of card-board, with a huge 

 pepper-box on the top. There is not a tree 

 in the streets ; and if it were not for fields of 

 refreshing verdure that surround the place, 

 I should have the optlialmia as well as the 

 blue-devils. Is there no way of instilling 

 some rudiments of taste into the minds of 

 dwellers in remote country places ? " 



We beg our correspondent, from whose 

 letter we quote the above paragraph, not 

 to despair. There are always wise and 

 good purposes hidden in the most common 

 events of life ; and we have no doubt Pro- 

 vidence has sent kim to the village of , 



as an apostle of taste, to instil some ideas 

 of beauty and fitness into the minds of its 

 inhabitants. 



That the aspect of a large part of our 

 rural villages, out of New-England, is dis- 



VoL. HI, 35 



tressing to a man of taste, is undeniable. 

 Not from want of means ; for the inhabi- 

 tants of these villages are thriving, indus- 

 trious people, and poverty is very little 

 known there. Not from want of materials ; 

 for both nature and the useful arts are 

 ready to give them everything needful, to 

 impart a cheerful, tasteful, and inviting as- 

 pect to their homes ; but simply from a 

 poverty of ideas, and a dormant sense of 

 the enjoyment to be derived from orderly, 

 tasteful and agreeable dwellings and streets, 

 do these villages merit the condemnation of 

 all men of taste and right feeling. 



The first duty of an inhabitant of forlorn 



neighborhoods, like the village of , is 



to use all possible influence to have the 

 streets planted loith trees. To plant trees, 

 costs little trouble or expense to each pro- 

 perty holder ; and once planted, there is 

 some assurance that, Avitli the aid of time 

 and nature, we can at least cast a graceful 

 veil over the deformity of a country home, 

 if we cannot wholly remodel its features. 

 Indeed, a village whose streets are bare of 

 trees, ought to be looked upon as in a con- 

 dition not less pitiable than a community 

 without a schoolmaster, or teacher of re- 

 ligion ; for certain it is, when the aiTec- 

 tions are so dull, and the domestic virtues 



