12 



The Country House 



It is well to have a fairly accurate outline of what you intend to do in the 

 way of the placing of the buildings before you have definitely decided on the land. 

 The house, stable, sheds, barns, poultry houses and yard, cow yard, kitchen 

 garden, kitchen yard, well house and whatever else you may intend to embody 

 should be roughly mapped, with due regard to the suggestions previously made. 



After the purchase has been made, a plan should be drawn as accurately as 

 possible, either by an engineer or by the owner. This should give the height 

 from the street grade; the trees and their condition, character and kind; soil 

 and location of ledge (if any). To help this plan in its intelligibility it is well to 

 make a series of photographs of the place from various established points on the 

 plan, as well as views from the road. When this is done, owner, architect and 

 landscape gardener have something to work from, although the site will probably 

 be visited by the latter. In making the pictures of the proposed site of various 

 buildings, it is well that some person of known height be included in the view, 

 standing on the site in question. This gives the scale at a glance, and is of much 

 value to the architect, who may not visit the land until after the sketches are made. 

 If the question of price be an item with you, know this that if you wear 

 store clothes, a collar, and keep your shoes in passable condition, the average 

 countryman will take you to be made of money and tack on the price accor- 

 dingly. When a man hails from the city his fate is settled. No one with any 

 sense of decency will object to paying a fair price for an article. On the other 

 hand, one does not care to be taken in on the strength of an imaginary fortune. 

 The better way is to get a trustworthy resident to make the bargain in his own 

 name and for you not to be known in the transaction. Be sure, however, that this 



is done with the 

 knowledge and 

 under the direction 

 of a lawyer, other- 

 wise your "trusty 

 resident" may own 

 the land instead of 

 yourself, and offer to 

 sell it to you after- 

 ward at more profit 

 than he is entitled to. 

 It is always best 

 to put a binder on 

 the land as soon as 

 you decide that you 



Looking across Newfound Lake, N. H. A good location, ample height and excellent view. Want It, OT 



suggesting the Colonial farmhouse that VOU Want it, 



pending the looking 



up of the title. If you do not do this someone else may get in ahead of you. 

 The best way is to bond the property for the sum agreed upon, paying a small 

 sum to hold it for a stipulated length of time. This gives you the refusal of it 

 for that time and for that price, and if you decide that it is not what you wish 



