MR. URBA N AND A CO UNTR Y HO USE. i 1 5 



your sympathies in the affair, and demonstrate some 

 improved method of culture at whatever cost? 

 Finally, do you wish it as a summer home, enjoyable 

 through all the time of leaves and fruitage and 

 not a cancer upon the purse through all the remaining 

 months of the year ? " 



Well not one in ten who talks vaguely about 

 having a farm a country place is prepared to 

 answer intelligibly and directly such questions. Can 

 you who have sometimes thought of giving your 

 children breathing-room, under trees? Can you 

 who have sometimes thought of glorifying your busi- 

 ness successes in Wall Street, by a tasteful home in 

 the country ? Can you publisher, jobber, grocer, 

 bookseller, tailor who have some vague notions of 

 eventually giving dignity to your gains by establish- 

 ing a home under elms have you any precise idea 

 of what you propose ? What limit of land what 

 range of landscape what fertility of soil what 

 addenda of convenience ? 



I don't think, for a moment, that you have ; I 

 don't think that one in a hundred has, who amuses 

 himself in dreamy hours with forecasts of a pleasant 

 home in the shade of oaks, and hi the midst of corn- 

 lands, which, in boyish days, he knew only too well. 

 The man who is eager for a town purchase of house 

 or lot, has very distinct notions (ordinarily) of the 



