CHAPTER XVIII 

 COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN* 



NOVEMBER, which is one of the least interesting 

 months to those who come into the country to 

 admire the freshness of spring or the fulness of 

 summer and early autumn, is one of the most interesting 

 to those who live in the country or who have country places 

 which they wish to improve. 



When the leaves have all dropped from the trees, when 

 the enchantment and illusion of summer are over, and 

 "the fall" (our expressive American word for autumn) has 

 stripped the glory from the sylvan landscape, then the rural 

 improver puts on his spectacles, and looks at his demesne 

 with practical and philosophical eyes. Taking things at 

 their worst, as they appear now, he sets about finding out 

 what improvements can be made and how the surroundings 

 which make his home can be so arranged as to offer a 

 fairer picture to the eye or a larger share of enjoyments 

 and benefits to the family in the year that is to come. 



The end of autumn is the best month to buy a country 

 place, and the best to improve one. You see it then in the 

 barest skeleton expression of ugliness or beauty, with all 

 opportunity to learn its defects, all its weak points visible, 

 all its possible capacities and suggestions for improvement 

 laid bare to you. If it satisfy you now, either in its present 

 aspect or in what promise you see in it of order and beauty 

 after your moderate plans are carried out, you may buy it 

 with the full assurance that you will not have cause to 

 repent when you learn to like it better as seen in the fresher 

 and fairer aspect of its summer loveliness. 



As a season for rural improvements the fall is preferable 



* Original date of December, 1850. 

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