XIII. 



COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN. 



December, 1850. 



1VTOVEMBER, which is one of the least interesting months to those 

 JA who come into the country to admire the freshness of spring 

 or the fulness of summer and early autumn, is one of the most in- 

 teresting to those who live in the country, or who have country 

 places which they wish to improve. 



When the leaves have all dropped from the trees, when the en- 

 chantment and illusion of summer are over, and " the fall " (our ex- 

 pressive American word for autumn) has stripped the glory from 

 the sylvan landscape, then the rural improver puts on his spectacles, 

 and looks at his demesne with practical and philosophical eyes. 

 Taking things at their worst, as they appear now, he sets about rind- 

 ing out what improvements can be made, and how the surroundings 

 which make his home, can be so arranged as to offer a fairer picture 

 to the eye, or a larger share of enjoyments and benefits to the 

 family, in the year that is to come. 



The end of autumn is the best month to buy a country place, 

 and the best to improve one. You see it then in the barest skeleton 

 expression of ugliness or beauty with all opportunity to learn its 

 defects, all its weak points visible, all its possible capacities and sug- 

 gestions for improvement laid bare to you. If it satisfy you now, 

 either in its present aspect, or in what promise you see in it of order 

 and beauty after your moderate plans are carried out, you may buy 

 it, with the full assurance that you will not have cause to repent 

 when you learn to like it better as seen in the fresher and fairer as- 

 pect of its summer loveliness. 

 12 



