THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
few. Without any reason at all where land is 
abundant, the bricks are piled up three stories high; 
and all around this structure we find only one small, 
bayed window, and a narrow porch, utterly unin- 
habitable — scarcely large enough for two or three 
chairs. There is a pinchedness everywhere, in 
striking contrast with the broad and generous na- 
ture that surrounds it. Such a house, planted at a 
conventional distance from the street, has a conven- 
tional grass plot in front, where is to be heard the 
eternal racket of a lawn mower, shoved back and 
forth across the grass. This is not a country home 
at all, nor has it any fitness outside of city limits. 
If you go into the country, study first country needs, 
country fitnesses, country possibilities, and then ad- 
just yourself to the same. 
In the next place, it is to be of absolute importance 
that you plant your country house where you can 
secure good drainage. ‘The sewerage must easily 
flow away from the house. Anything like stagna- 
tion should be avoided. If you have a swale or 
slope behind the house I advise you to carry all 
kitchen and closet sewerage to an open cesspool, 
not less than four hundred feet from the house. 
This cesspool can be easily made also a compost 
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