TAKING REINS IN HAND 



for which many of our old-fashioned farmers 

 have a wonderful aptitude. Should they all be 

 swept away, and a new company of buildings 

 erected? The stanch timbers and the service- 

 able condition of many of them forbade this, 

 as well as considerations of prudence. Besides 

 which, I have no admiration for that incon- 

 gruity which often appears at the hands of 

 those who are suddenly smitten^ with a love 

 for the country — of expensive and jaunty farm 

 architecture in contrast with a dilapidated farm. 

 I believe in a well-conditioned harmony be- 

 tween farm products and the roofs that shelter 

 them, and that both should gain extent and 

 fulness, by orderly progression. It has chanced 

 to me to see here and there through the country 

 very admirable appliances of machinery and 

 buildings, which, on the score of both cost and 

 needfulness, were out of all proportion to the 

 fertility and the order of the fields. I see, 

 too, not unfrequently, very showy palings in 

 the neighborhood of a country house, which 

 are flanked by the craziest of slatternly fences ; 

 whereat it always occurs to me, that the ex- 

 penditure would be far better distributed in 

 giving a general neatness and effectiveness to 

 all the enclosures, rather than lavished upon 

 a little spurt of white splendor about the house. 



105 



