FARM LANDSCAPES 123 



may cast their inviting shadows; a border of graceftilly 

 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 woodlot may be left 

 to cover the distant rocky slope. Fruit trees may be used 

 for ornament as weU 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 

 nattiral contoiu- 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 hill tops, but 

 nestle among great trees with always an outlook across levels 

 of green toward distant lulls or valleys or strips of blue water. 

 They are sequestered a bit from the winds and from the 

 pubhc; and as Wordsworth said concerning the older homes 

 of lake country of England (Guide p. 43) "Cottages so placed, 

 by seeming to withdraw from the eye, are the more endeared 

 to the feeUngs." Their decorative plantings are not sicHy 

 "novelties," leading a nursling ejdstence, but the hardiest 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 



