FARM LANDSCAPES 123 
may cast their inviting shadows; a border of gracefully 
merging masses of shrubbery may inclose the sides and give it 
an aspect of privacy; evergreens may be planted to shut out 
the view of unsightly objects; and the wood-lot may be left 
to cover the distant rocky slope. Fruit trees may be used 
for ornament as well as service; they will grow and bloom and 
bear fruit just as well where they contribute to the beauty of. 
the place as where they block the view. And if the roads and 
fences be not made too conspicuous where they transgress 
natural contour lines, and if buildings be not set up where 
they hide the more pleasing distant prospects, nor painted in 
alarming hues—then one may look at the place without 
lamenting that it has been “improved.’’ The most pleasing 
of homesteads usually are not those that have the greatest 
advantage of location, or that have had the most money 
lavished upon them. But they are the places that fit their 
environment most perfectly, and that are planned and 
planted most simply. 
Much bad taste has been imported into our country houses 
from the cities of late. In almost any locality in the eastern 
United States, it is the older houses that have the most 
pleasing setting. They are not exposed on bare hilltops, but 
nestle among great trees with always an outlook across levels 
of green toward distant hills or valleys or strips of blue water. 
They are sequestered a bit from the winds and from the 
public; and as Wordsworth said concerning the older homes 
of the lake country of England (Guide, p. 43), “Cottages so 
placed, by seeming to withdraw from theeye, are the moreen- 
deared to the feelings.’”’ Their decorative plantings are not 
sickly ‘‘novelties,”’ leading a nursling existence, but the hardi- 
est of the hardy plants, that grow and, in their season, bloom 
lustily. The houses are not tall and spindling, but low and 
contented and comfortable-looking. Their roofs are not cut 
up in figures to make an alarming sky line, but, broadly 
