THE COUNTRY PLACE 27 



in America. After! a few years of experience with open country living, 

 few, if any, country place owners fail to form different ideas of farm 

 life and its problems. It has, however, long been, the rule that a young 

 man leaves the farm and goes to the city to work, so that when he is an 

 old man he will have enough money laid by to go back to the country 

 to live. The owner of the smallest "War Garden" in 1917-1918 

 became for the time an agriculturalist and even though the actual 

 amount of food consumed was small, the sentimental result of the interest 

 aroused in plant growing and soil cultivation was great. Much of the 

 lack of sympathy and mutual understanding between the city and 

 country that existed a few years ago has almost disappeared and' not a 

 little of this has been through a more intelligent realization of the dif- 

 ferent problems of town and country having the same principles in their 

 solution. 



The farmer who lives his life in the open country appreciates the 

 natural scenery more than is generally realized. While he may not 

 understand the principles of composition and be able to analyze the 

 open country views that form an important part of his daily life, he 

 no less appreciates the scenery that is all about him and will point out 

 the important views that can be seen from various parts of the farm 

 and describe them in a most vivid way. 



The farthest point that can be seen, the most beautiful trees 

 and the landscape value of each, the ever changing landscape and sky 

 and their meaning are important factors of the daily life on the farm, 

 while to the city dweller these changes are catalogued as day and 

 night sun and cloud warm and cold windy and still, or a geo- 

 graphical analysis of views and landscapes. 



The farmer's knowledge of plants is based on their usefulness and 

 classed as weeds, crops, hedgegrows, brush, woodlot, timber, May- 

 flowers or wildflowers. The view of the open country to him has in- 

 terest as good fields of farm crops free from weeds, clean fence rows, 

 fruit trees pruned so as to bear good fruit. The middle distance 

 becomes collected into a certain number of acres of farm land, meadow, 

 cultivated fields, pastures and woodland and the distant view into his 

 neighbor's farm or some familiar hill so many miles away. The whole, 



