i 4 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



not safely be ignorant of simple botany you must at 

 least know the difference between poison ivy and Vir- 

 ginia creeper. 



When planting you have to choose from a cata- 

 logue of one hundred varieties of apples, fifty of 

 pears, and twenty-five of cherries. You cannot grow 

 more than a dozen probably perhaps only five of 

 each class. You must find out which suits your soil 

 and your climate, and which are most subject to 

 local diseases and insect foes. So with everything 

 you touch. There is no question about your making 

 mistakes; the aim is to help you make as few as 

 possible. You are at once to take up the role of 

 student and become an investigator. 



In other words, anyone who would become a coun- 

 try home-maker is confronted, at the very outset, 

 with the demand that he become something of an 

 ornithologist, a geologist, a botanist, and an entomolo- 

 gist. Of course he will be an amateur and a begin- 

 ner, but a sincere student he must be, or fail. This 

 is much more true than formerly, because our insect 

 rivals are increasing in number, and the art of com- 

 bating them is complex, while the number of fruits 

 and vegetables has been multiplied by one hundred. 

 A well-organized country home is an affair not too 

 often found. 



At the outset you are liable to make serious blund- 

 ers in location. A good deal of the land is not in 

 a condition suitable for an amateur home-maker, 

 and I am sorry to tell you that this is the very land 



