THE RENOVATION OF OLD PLACES. 245 



In conclusion, it may be safely said that new places rarely 

 afford a skillful planter such opportunities for making quick and 

 beautiful effects at small cost as old places of similar extent. Our 

 town suburbs would in a half dozen years be more beautiful than 

 most persons can conceive possible, even without the addition of 

 a single new home, provided all the old homes could feel the renovat- 

 ing hands of true artists in home-grounds, and be kept up in the 

 same spirit. The metamorphosis of such places, from cluttered 

 aggregations of superfluities, to gleaming lawns, smilingly intro- 

 ducing the beholder to beautiful trees and flowers that luxuriate in 

 the new-made space and sun around them, is too great not to in- 

 spire those who have profited by the change to preserve the beauty 

 that may so easily be brought to light. 



Old Houses. — Old places which have houses "just good enough 

 not to move off or tear down," are greatly undervalued by most 

 purchasers. It is not quite in the scope of this work to put in a 

 plea for old houses, but we must confess to a very loving partiality 

 for them when tastefully renovated. No one, however, but an 

 architect who is known to have a tasteful faculty for such adapta- 

 tions should be employed to direct the work.* There is a thought- 

 less prejudice in the minds of most Americans against all things 

 which are not span-new ; and we have met men of such ludicrous 

 depravity of taste in this respect, as to cut down fine old trees in 

 order to have room to plant some pert and meagre little nurslings 

 of their own buying i Although houses do not grow great by age, 

 like trees, yet, where strongly built at first, and afterwards well 

 occupied, they acquire certain quaint expressions which are the 

 very aroma of pleasing homes ; which nothing but age can give a 

 home ; and this beauty of some old houses should be as lovingly 

 preserved as that of the aged apple, maple, or elm trees around 

 them. 



•The attention of the reader is commended to Vaux' "Villas and Cottages," page 205, for 

 some valuable remarks on this subject. 



