FARM LANDSCAPES 123 



may cast their inviting shadows; a border of gracefully 

 merging masses of shrubbery may inclose the sides and give it 

 an aspect of privacy ; evergreens may be planted to shut out 

 the view of unsightly objects ; and the wood-lot may be left 

 to cover the distant rocky slope. Fruit trees may be used 

 for ornament as well as service ; they will grow and bloom and 

 bear fruit just as well where they contribute to the beauty of 

 the place as where they block the view. And if the roads and 

 fences be not made too conspicuous where they transgress 

 natural contour lines, and if buildings be not set up where 

 they hide the more pleasing distant prospects, nor painted in 

 alarming hues — then one may look at the place without 

 lamenting that it has been "improved." The most pleasing 

 of homesteads usually are not those that have the greatest 

 advantage of location, or that have had the most money 

 lavished upon them. But they are the places that fit their 

 environment most perfectly, and that are planned and 

 planted most simply. 



Much bad taste has been imported into our country houses 

 from the cities of late. In almost any locality in the eastern 

 United States, it is the older houses that have the most 

 pleasing setting. They are not exposed on bare hilltops, but 

 nestle among great trees with always an outlook across levels 

 of green toward distant hills or valleys or strips of blue water. 

 They are sequestered a bit from the winds and from the 

 public ; and as Wordsworth said concerning the older homes 

 of the lake country of England (Guide, p. 43), "Cottages so 

 placed, by seeming to withdraw from the eye, are the more en- 

 deared to the feelings." Their decorative plantings are not 

 sickly "novelties, "leading a nursling existence, but the hardi- 

 est of the hardy plants, that grow and, in their season, bloom 

 lustily. The houses are not tall and spindling, but low and 

 contented and comfortable-looking. Their roofs are not cut 

 up in figures to make an alarming sky line, but, broadly 



