204 Landscape Gardening 



But do they get its full value? Are there not many 

 who arc disgusted with the country after a few years' trial, 

 mainly because they find country places and country life 

 as they have tried them more expensive than a residence 

 in town? And is there not something that may be done to 

 w r arn the new beginners of the dangers of the voyage of 

 pleasure on which they are about to embark with the 

 fullest faith that it is all smooth water? 



We think so: and as we are daily brought into contact 

 with precisely this class of citizens, seeking for and building 

 country places, we should be glad to be able to offer some 

 useful hints to those who are not too wise to find them of 

 value 



Perhaps the foundation of all the miscalculations that 

 arise, as to expenditure in forming a country residence, is 

 that citizens are in the habit of thinking everything in the 

 country cheap. Land in the town is sold by the foot, in 

 the country by the acre. The price of a good house in 

 town is, perhaps, three times the cost of one of the best 

 farms in the country. The town buys everything: the coun- 

 try raises everything. To live on your own estate, be it 

 one acre or a thousand, to have your own milk, butter 

 and eggs, to raise your own chickens and gather your own 

 strawberries, with nature to keep the account instead of 

 your grocer and market-woman, that is something like a 

 rational life; and more than rational, it must be cheap. 

 So argues the citizen about retiring, not only to enjoy his 

 otium cum dignitate, but to make a thousand dollars of 

 his income produce him more of the comforts of life than 

 two thousand did before. 



Well, he goes into the country. He buys a farm (run 

 down with poor tenants and bad tillage). He builds a new 

 house, with his own ignorance instead of architect and 

 master-builder, and is cheated roundly by those who take 

 advantage of this masterly ignorance in the matter of bricks 

 and mortar; or he repairs an old house at the full cost of a 

 new one, and has an unsatisfactory dwelling forever after- 

 wards. He undertakes high farming, and knowing nothing 



