Citizens Retiring to the Country 209 



hundred poorly cultivated. And the advantage for you 

 is that you can, upon your few acres, spend just as little or 

 just as much as you please. If you wish to be prudent, 

 lay out your little estate in a simple way, with grass and 

 trees, and a few walks, and a single man may then take 

 care of it. If you wish to indulge your taste, you may fill 

 it with shrubberies, and arboretums, and conservatories, 

 and flower-gardens, till every tree and plant and fruit in the 

 whole vegetable kingdom, of really superior beauty and 

 interest, is in your collection. Or, if you wish to turn a 

 penny, you will find it easier to take up certain fruits or 

 plants and grow them to high perfection so as to command 

 a profit in the market than you will to manage the various 

 operations of a large farm. We could point to ten acres 

 of ground from which a larger income has been produced 

 than from any farm of five hundred acres in the country. 

 Gardening, too, offers more variety of interest to a citizen 

 than farming; its operations are less rude and toilsome, 

 and its pleasures more immediate and refined. Citizens, 

 ignorant of farming, should therefore buy small places 

 rather than large ones, if they wish to consult their own 

 true interest and happiness. 



But some of our readers who have tried the thing may 

 say that it is a very expensive thing to settle oneself and 

 get well established, even on a small place in the country. 

 And so it is, if we proceed upon the fallacy, as we have 

 said, that everything in the country is cheap. Labor is 

 dear; it costs you dearly to-day, and it will cost you dearly 

 tomorrow and the next year. Therefore in selecting a 

 site for a home in the country always remember to choose 

 a site where nature has done as much as possible for you. 

 Don't say to yourself as many have done before you - 

 "Oh! I want occupation, and I rather like the new place 

 - raw and naked though it may be. I will create a para- 

 dise for myself. I will cut down yonder hill that intercepts 

 the view, I will level and slope more gracefully yonder 

 rude bank, I will terrace this rapid descent, I will make a 

 lake in yonder hollow." Yes, all this you may do for occu- 



