HOW TO CHOOSE A SITE FOR A COUNTRY-SEAT. 



December, 1847. 



HOW to choose the site for a country house, is a subject now 

 occupying the thoughts of many of our countrymen, and 

 therefore is not undeserving a few words from us at the present 

 moment. 



The greater part of those who build country-seats in the United 

 States, are citizens who retire from the active pursuits of town to en- 

 joy, in the most rational way possible, the fortunes accumulated 

 there that is to say, in the creation of beautiful and agreeable rural 

 homes. 



Whatever may be the natural taste of this class, their avoca- 

 tions have not permitted them to become familiar with the difficul- 

 ties to be encountered in making a new place, or the most successful 

 way of accomplishing all that they propose to themselves. Hence, 

 we not unfrequently see a very complete house surrounded, for years, 

 by very unfinished and meagre grounds. Weary with the labor and 

 expense of levelling earth, opening roads and walks, and clothing a 

 naked place with new plantations, all of which he finds far less easily 

 accomplished than building brick walls in the city, the once san- 

 guine improver often abates his energy, and loses his interest in the 

 embellishment of his grounds, before his plans are half perfected. 



All this arises from a general disposition to underrate the diffi- 

 culty and cost of making plantations, and laying the groundwork 

 of a complete country residence. Landscape gardening, where all 

 its elements require to be newly arranged, where the scenery of a 



