THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
gence, needs very little capital, but can win a decent 
living out of the soil. We must dread most of all 
the herding instinct, and any tendency of folk to 
become unable to live out of elbow contact with 
their neighbors. My purpose, in fine, is to help 
you to get acquainted with the trees, bugs, brooks, 
and birds; to develop a capacity for society with 
things, and to open that big book whose pages are 
pastures and forests and meadows, and farm-clad 
hillsides. We shall have very little to do, or to say, 
concerning the accumulation of wealth; but much 
of the evolution of a simple life, where wealth is of 
little importance. In the country our first aim is 
not to amass, put to produce; not so much to spend, 
as to create. 
[12] 
