562 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



I have often wondered at the stupidity of those men of 

 wealth, who, to save some distance in their daily journey, 

 pay an exorbitant price for a few roods of ground, in a most 

 unfavorable exposure, without a tree on the spot to shade 

 them in summer, and neither wood nor hill in their vicinity 

 to protect them from the cutting gales of winter, and where 

 their grounds do not afford them space enough to plant any 

 such protection. One does not sufficiently bear in mind, that 

 while these things may not greatly affect his own comfort, on 

 account of his absence nearly all the day in town, yet, that 

 the women and children of his household are at home the 

 greater part of the time. How greatly would their happi- 

 ness be increased by these advantages, which would suffer 

 them in all clear weather to walk out of doors, protected 

 from the bleak winds, and cheered and warmed by the full 

 influence of the sun's rays. Without these provisions for 

 their out-of-door comfort, women and invalids are confined 

 within doors the greater pari of the year, and suffer propor- 

 tional injury to their health. Yet I believe there are but few 

 days in the whole year, in clear weather, in which one might 

 not take a pleasant and comfortable walk out of doors, if 

 these means of shelter were near at hand. When I was a 

 student, I was in the habit, on clear days in winter, of regu- 

 larly walking over a long, uncomfortable road, for the sake of 

 half an hour's stroll in a wood of this description, that grew 

 on the side of a hill facing the south. A narrow, open past- 

 ure was spread out in front of it, and this was protected on 

 the northeast side, by a dense pine wood. The sun's rays 

 were admitted into this retreat nearly all the day, and being 

 reverberated from the surface of the earth, produced a pleas- 

 ant temperature in this natural enclosure, even when the 

 thermometer outside was at zero ! Here might one take a 

 delightful stroll, in all clear weather, and feel, as it were, the 

 influence of a milder sky. 



How much of the ill-humor occasioned by our vexatious 

 climate, might be prevented by proper attention to all these 

 circumstances — by building our houses in situations like the 

 one above described, or by encompassing them with a similar 



