xm. 



COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN. 



■- December, 1850. 



NOVEMBER, which, is one of the least interesting months to those 

 who coine into the country to admire the freshness of spring 

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

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

 places which they wish to irtiprove. 



When the leaves have all dropped from the ti-ees, 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 look^ at his demesne with practical and philosophical eyes. 

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

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

 which mate 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 earned 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. 

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