HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE. 487 



SECTION II. 



HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE. 



ON the Continent and in England, it is rarely that a 

 new place is made from the beginning. The taste for 

 country life having existed as long as England herself 

 has existed, the whole kingdom may be said to be one 

 universal garden ; all who can, from the sovereign to 

 the cit, live, at least some portion of the year, in the 

 country ; in fact, one's respectability is not complete, 

 unless he is a landed proprietor. If, as we said in our 

 preface, there are in England 20,000 country houses, 

 each larger than the White House, at Washington, 

 there are more than twice that number, a great deal 

 smaller. 



Places change hands, but few new places are made. 

 This is not the case in this country. We have but few 

 old estates, and those, whenever offered for sale, are 

 generally so run down and desolate as to afford little 

 attraction to the beginner of country life ; besides which 

 the universal delusion among us is that we can make a 

 country place, cheaper than we can buy one. While 

 we are alarmed at a sum total, we easily reconcile our- 

 selves to progressive expenditure, until, in the end, we 

 realize " that fools build houses and wise men live in 

 them." 



This is one great reason, we have always thought, why 

 makers of new places so soon become discontented and 

 discouraged, and ready to sell out at a sacrifice. A 

 man who hesitates to give $20,000, or $100,000 for a 



