132 LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



and with more of the feeling of getting its full value, than any other 

 class. 



But do they get its full value ? Are there not many who are 

 disgusted with the country after a few years' trial, mainly because 

 they find country places, and country, life, as they have tried them, 

 more expensive than a residence in town ? And is there not some- 

 thing that may be done to warn the new beginners of the dangers 

 of the voyage of pleasure on which they are about to embark, with 

 the fullest faith that it is all smooth water ? 



We think so : and as we are daily brought into contact with 

 precisely this class of citizens, seeking for and building country 

 places, we should be glad to be able to offer some useful hints to 

 those who are not too wise to find them of value. 



Perhaps the foundation of all the miscalculations that arise, as to 

 expenditure in forming a country residence, is, that citizens are in 

 the habit of thinking every thing in the country cheap. Land in the 

 town is sold by the foot, in the country by the acre. The price of a 

 good house in town is, perhaps, three times the cost of one of the 

 best farms in the country. The town buys every thing : the country 

 raises every thing. To live on your own estate, be it one acre or a 

 thousand, to have your own milk, butter and eggs, to raise your own 

 chickens and gather your own strawberries, with nature to keep the 

 account instead of your grocer and market-woman, that is something 

 like a rational life ; and more than rational, it must be cheap. So . 

 argues the citizen about retiring, not only to enjoy his otium cum 

 dignitate, but to make a thousand dollars of his income, produce 

 him more of the comforts of life than two thousand did before. 



Well ; he goes into the cot fit ry. He buys a farm (run down 

 with poor tenants and bad tillage). He builds a new house, with 

 his own ignorance instead of architect and master-builder, and is 

 cheated roundly by those who take advantage of this masterly igno- 

 rance in the matter of bricks and mortar ; or he repairs an old house 

 at the full cost of a new one, and has an unsatisfactory dwelling for 

 ever afterwards. He undertakes high farming, and knowing noth- 

 ing of the practical economy of husbandry, every bushel of corn that 

 he raises costs him the price of a bushel and a half in the market. 

 Used in town to a neat and orderly condition of his premises, he is 



