128 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



his patented pictures on your land. He will destroy 

 in a day what you cannot recover in a century. 

 Above all, look out for the professional trimmer. 

 He will, if allowed, cut your evergreens into mon- 

 strosities. He thinks it beautiful to cut out the 

 middle branches of your spruces, or to cut up from 

 the bottom your pines. He likes green hens on top 

 of hedges, and if let loose he will absolutely ruin 

 the idea which nature has endeavored to work out. 

 I advise everyone, who is going out of the city to take 

 up a country home, to be very patient. Take time 

 to think for yourself. Get acquainted with your 

 land. Grow into it. If you were a boy here at one 

 time, renew your association with the past. Plant 

 nothing and cut nothing until you have got the whole 

 place well gathered into your mind. Indeed, I rec- 

 ommend that you do very little for the first year, 

 except to look out for sanitation and the simplest 

 comforts. You will then be prepared to work in 

 shelters where they are needed ; you will know where 

 the wind strikes, and you will be ,able to get at a 

 shrubbery, and gardens with hedges and appropriate 

 drives. I am sure that by the second year you will 

 have lost the saw and ax passion. 



It will generally turn out that, by careful study, 

 you can use a large part of what is at hand, even 

 including some defects. A little management, and 

 a neglected corner, with half-decayed trees and 

 thickets of underwood, can be gently trained and 

 taught to speak of the beautiful and the useful. If 

 you begin with the determination of cutting away 

 everything that, looked at in and of itself is defec- 

 tive, you will end by cutting down everything on the 



