THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



year more." Striding along beside the fences, he 

 said, "Here should be a windbreak of evergreens, 

 and there should be one of Tartarian honeysuckle 

 or high-bush cranberry, giving bushels of food for 

 useful birds. The windbreaks and birds would be 

 worth another large sum." In this way he walked 

 over a farm of forty acres. It was one of those 

 places that "don't pay." The reason was plainly 

 because the best part of the land was going to waste, 

 and that no attention was being paid to that do- 

 mestic economy which makes everything at the 

 same time useful and beautiful. To follow out the 

 suggestions of the new owner would transform the 

 whole place into a garden. This is what must 

 come about in relation to all home-making in the 

 country. Small homesteads will be the rule, and 

 these will cultivate the beautiful as well as the 

 useful. 

 x( It is so easy to make the beautiful and the useful 

 work together, that I wonder that they are ever 

 divorced. A handsome lawn, fine hedges, a clean 

 and shaded highway, a shrubbery giving glimpses 

 of continuous bloom, raise the market value of the 

 property. I knew a man who shot a breachy cow, 

 and then smilingly paid a fifty dollar fine, saying: 



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