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as well as give heavy profits. The horse cultivator runs 
not only through the berry garden and the vegetable 
garden, but through a small plot of flowers, especially roses. 
The owner gets his home supply from these gardens, and 
sells as follows—that is, this is his record for 1908: Cur- 
rants, I,000 quarts, $100; cherries brought $50; plums, 
$50; raspberries, $150; other berries, $50; honey, $75; 
pears, $75; and apples, including cider and vinegar, $300 
more. These are all rather moderate items; but if you 
summed them up they come to a tidy sum, not far from 
$1,000. His horse and cow are mainly fed by alfalfa cut 
from his orchard and lawns, while a small field of corn fod- 
der adds largely to the milk product. He has, however, to 
pay one hundred dollars per year for additional hay and 
mill feed. His meat bill, beyond eggs and chickens, does 
not exceed fifty dollars per year; his hired help, besides his 
own boys and girls, is less than one hundred dollars; his coal 
bill is greatly reduced by tree trimmings, which furnish wood 
for five summer months. His house is supplied with electric 
lights, and he tells me that it will not be long before the 
same power will furnish him heat, beside doing most of his 
house and barn work. I believe he is right in this anticipa- 
tion, and that we are not far from the day when our houses 
will be without chimneys, furnaces and ashes. ‘There is no 
stint in this man’s family, of fruits of all sorts and their free 
use; while honey is a staple article of daily food. The cow 
furnishes not only enough for the family, of milk and butter 
and cream, but adds her quota to the surplus of sales arti- 
cles. If the family needs an outing, the quiet horse affords 
them an opportunity, through the lanes and by-ways, with- 
out cost or fare. 
I ought to add a sketch for a suburban or village home- 
stead, of a single acre or half an acre. 
Let the drive follow an easy curve around the flower beds 
or among the trees, and, if there be a depression, follow 
that; or a knob or rock, drive around. In other words, try 
here as elsewhere to find out what simple directions Nature 
has to offer you. In these smaller homesteads do not make 
the buildings conspicuous with gaudy paint, and especially 
Sy 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
May, 1909 
do not place them any nearer the street than is necessary. 
The first law of country life is a chance for retreat and re- 
tirement, and quite as important is it not to have the dust 
blowing over your trees and flowers and into the house. It 
is impossible to have comfort or beauty under such condi- 
tions. In the little sketch which I have offered I provide for 
the practical as well as the ornamental, and always have it 
in mind that a country place ought to pay its own way—at 
least after the few formative years. I have marked for 
bees and for a small conservatory, on the supposition that 
flowers may be raised for sale. Where this is not a paying 
business, it may be very well to have a surplus of roses, lilies 
and carnations to supply an extra demand upon the florists. 
When I began this series on Making a Country Home 
I promised but three or four articles, but the evident need 
was for the five which I have given you. You are now well 
settled in a country home, surrounded by your gardens of 
all sorts and your orchard. You had time to secure pet 
animals, and to provide for their feed. If you think, how- 
ever, that you have nothing to do but enjoy yourselves you 
will find out. By all means drop your city habits and adjust 
yourselves at once to those demands which Nature will surely 
make. My advice is that you get out of bed at daylight, and 
go to bed with the birds. City work is best done in the mid- 
dle of the day; but country work can be best accomplished 
at the ends of the day, especially in the morning. Do not 
crowd your work, but take an adequate nooning. For this 
I shall expect to see about your place hammocks under the 
trees, and on the broad veranda. I advise you further to 
keep a memorandum of the things that are to be done, for if 
you do not you will never get what a Yankee calls ‘“‘ahead.” 
You will work off the ends of the memorandum, but that list 
of items will never grow shorter. It is the memory in your 
pocket; and its purpose is to save taxing the memory in 
your head. And now if you can never learn to find your joy 
in achievement, so as to make labor beautiful and attractive, 
you had better go back to the city, and content yourself with 
selling what other people have the wit and the grit to grow. 
But be assured the country life offers the most. 
LS 
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