304 MY FARM. 



more agreeable to country landscape, fuller far of 

 service and of suggestion, than any of the portentous 

 rustic-work in city shops. 



The due adjustment of colors is also a thing to be 

 considered in the reckoning of rural effects ; thus, 

 with my old weather-stained house, I do not care to 

 place new paint in contrast ; the old be-clouded tint 

 harmonizes well with the rustic work of fences and 

 outbuildings ; while away, upon the law r n, or opening 

 into green fields, or better still in the very bight 

 of the wood, I give the contrast of a brilliant and 

 flashing white. 



I am touching a very large subject here, with a 

 very short chapter. Indeed, there is no end to the 

 pretty and artistic combinations by which a man who 

 loves the country with a fearless, demonstrative love, 

 may not provoke its rarer beauties to appear. 

 Flower, tree, fence, outbuilding all wait upon his 

 hands ; and the results of his loving labor do not end 

 when his work is done ; but the vines, the trees, the 

 mosses, the deepening shadows, are, year after year, 

 mellowing his raw handiwork, and ripening a new 

 harvest of charms. And in following these, I think 

 there is an interest not perhaps quotable on Change 

 but which rallies a man s finer instincts, and binds 

 him in leash not wearisome or galling to the great 

 procession of the seasons, ever full of bounties, as of 

 beauties. 



