136 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



even on a small place in the country. And so it is, if we proceed 

 upon the fallacy, as we have said, that every thing in the country is 

 cheap. Labor is dear ; it costs you dearly to-day, and it will cost 

 you dearly to-morrow, and the next year. Therefore, in selecting a 

 site for a home in the country, always remember to choose a site 

 where nature has done as much as possible for you. Don't say to 

 yourself as many have done before you " Oh ! I want occupation, 

 and I rather like the new place raw and naked though it may 

 be. / will create a paradise for myself. I will cut down yonder 

 hill that intercepts the view, I will level and slope more gracefully 

 yonder rude bank, I will terrace this rapid descent, I will make a 

 lake in yonder hollow." Yes, all this you may do for occupation, 

 and find it very delightful occupation too, if you have the income 

 of Mr. Astor. Otherwise, after you have spent thousands in creat- 

 ing your paradise, and chance to go to some friend who has bought 

 all the graceful undulations, and sloping lawns, and sheets of water, 

 natural, ready made as they may be bought in thousands of purely 

 natural places in America, for a few hundred dollars, it will give 

 you a species of pleasure-ground-dyspepsia to see how foolishly you 

 have wasted your money. And this, more especially, when you 

 find, as the possessor of the most finished place in America finds, 

 that he has no want of occupation, and that far from being finished, 

 he has only begun to elicit the highest beauty, keeping and com- 

 pleteness of which his place is capable. 



It would be easy to say a great deal more in illustration of the 

 mistakes continually made by citizens going into the country ; of 

 their false ideas of the cost of doing every thing ; of the profits of 

 farming ; of their own talent for making an income from the land, 

 and their disappointment, growing out of a failure of all their theo- 

 ries and expectations. But we have perhaps said enough to cause 

 some of our readers about to take the step, to consider whether they 

 mean to look upon country life as a luxury they are willing to pay 

 so much a year for, or as a means of adding something to their 

 incomes. Even in the former case, they are likely to underrate the 

 cost of the luxury, and in the latter they must set about it with the 

 frugal and industrial habits of the real farmer, or they will fail. The 

 safest way is to attempt but a modest residence at first, and let 



