26o Old and New Homes. 



mansion-house ; and that, in spite of her good resokitions, she was making 

 comparisons. The old home, with its neatly-whitewashed exterior and 

 green blinds, its modest piazza, and pillars intwined with vines and flowers, 

 rose up before her, and put to shame this unsightly house, whose former 

 owners seemed never to have heard of whitewash, or to have needed a 

 protection from the sun. 



" Never mind the looks of things," said my father in a comforting tone ; 

 for he evidently conjectured what was passing in her mind. "We'll soon 

 make them all right." 



Inside, however, things appeared rather more endurable; and the furni- 

 ture had been set in order so far as was possible, while a bright fire was 

 blazing away in the large kitchen-stove. My mother, being a sensible help- 

 meet, was disposed to make the best of every thing ; and so we were all set 

 to work unpacking, and fitting the carpets, and hanging up pictures, until, 

 before night, affairs looked quite promising. Meantime, the rain prevented 

 any further outside views ; and my mother, who well knew the potency of a 

 little whitewash, gave herself no further uneasiness about the before-men- 

 tioned shabby exterior : all she wanted was a little time to put a new face 

 on the picture. 



We New-Englanders know but little of New Jersey. History has in- 

 formed us that its early settlers were of a totally different race from that 

 which colonized the Eastern States. They came of nearly all the European 

 nationalities, not one of them developing the thrift and perseverance of New- 

 Englanders ; and, having never acquired the wealth which commerce and 

 manufactures enabled New-Englanders to secure, education flagged, enter- 

 prise was sluggish, the arts were unknown, and that of architecture seems 

 to have been altogether lost. Hence most of the old wooden farm-houses 

 of half a century ago are very inconvenient and homely structures. It is 

 only since the advent of railroads and steamboats that any improvement 

 in the building of farm-houses has been apparent. Those great appliances 

 of human comfort brought to the door of every farmer in Central New Jersey 

 a cash market for all that he could produce. That cash enabled him to 

 improve the productiveness of his land by purchasing manures ; and, this 

 double process being continued, his land has been brought up to the highest 

 condition. But discovering that it was the regenerated land which paid 



