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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



April, 1908 



Monthly Comment 



t]HE annual exodus to the country has ar- 

 rived. All over the land country houses 

 are being opened, swept and garnished and 

 made ready for immediate occupancy, if, 

 indeed, they have not already been taken 

 possession of. Free excursions are being 

 held weekly to new "home sites." Real es- 

 tate men are proclaiming the merits of their wares from the 

 pages of every newspaper, and the farmers are dusting off 

 the accumulations of winter from their "For Sale" signs. 

 With the chirping of the birds, the growing of the grass, 

 the budding of the trees, the blooming of the crocuses and 

 other early plants there is vast activity in the countryside, 

 apart from the less exciting but vastly more useful operations 

 of the farmer. One no longer counts how much the mercury 

 is below the zero point, but how far it reaches above it. And 

 with each ascending degree there is certain hope that 

 the warm season has arrived, or at least is so near at hand 

 that its gentle phases may be safely reckoned with. 



Of the various persons who go out into the countryside in 

 the spring none are so interesting as those who do so for the 

 first time. Girded up with hope, buttressed with promises of 

 economic living, of pure air, of convenience of access, of the 

 advantage of individual ownership, and all the multitude of 

 attractions that have taken them from their city home to a 

 new one in the country, loaded to their hat-tops with anticipa- 

 tions of pleasures to come, they fare boldly forth to the new 

 world they have chosen. A new world indeed is about to be 

 theirs, and they have no doubt but that they will master it 

 quickly, speedily, at once, and without any dislocations, 

 mental or physical. Some heroic souls will doubtless accom- 

 complish this end in an exceedingly satisfactory manner, 

 while those who do not are likely to spend many months in 

 regretting they do not. Let all take comfort in the fact that 

 the fittest will survive. 



The movement from the city to the country has now cov- 

 ered a sufficiently extensive series of years for certain well 

 defined sorts of settlement to become apparent. One may, 

 if one chooses, settle in a village; yet even here there is 

 choice of locality, for there is the older, already established 

 center of population, and the newer part where all may be 

 newcomers. It is not always the most agreeable thing to 

 settle down in a population of old settlers who have been 

 living on one spot for many years; there is quite as much 

 likelihood of the newcomer being received with suspicion as 

 if he settled in an old and fashionable quarter of a city with- 

 out any introductions whatsoever. In the new sections every- 

 one is on the same basis so far as length of residence is con- 

 cerned. It is a difficult problem and one that, in the end, 

 must be solved from the social standpoint quite as well as 

 from aspects of convenience, accessibility and expense. 



Nor is the difficulty lessoned by seeking sites in the real 

 country where the houses are some distance apart. Here one 

 is apt to come into immediate juxtaposition with the native 

 and the original inhabitant. To be sure, there is a certain 

 joy in studying the unsophisticated countryman, but this de- 

 light is not always heightened by a state of permanent 

 proximity. The greatest of pleasures pall at times, and the 

 novelty of studying new types of human nature becomes 

 wearisome at time when the type is discovered to be universal 

 and identical in every available instance. But once located, 



it is not easy to remove, and the homeseeker who has once 

 established himself in a country home is likely to remain there 

 for quite some time. 



The countryside movement has, as a matter of course, 

 greatly enriched the native settlers and put money into their 

 purses. So true is this that vast areas adjacent to our large 

 cities have long since ceased to be used for farming or gar- 

 den purposes, and are completely utilized as building sites. 

 But every city still has much accessible surrounding terri- 

 tory in which the old settlers and the new live side by side. 

 Here, if one cares for that sort of entertainment, the great- 

 est sport arises. The native is frequently disposed to view 

 the newcomer with more or less distrust. The latter has just 

 come in ; the former is where he belongs, having belonged 

 there all his life. A vast gulf is instantly fixed between the 

 two parties; or, rather, a series of gulfs, for each has his 

 own kind, each of his own making. Of these various gulfs 

 — and sometimes they take the form of mountains, and even 

 of mountain ranges — that created by the native is the most 

 difficult to bridge and the most hazardous to cross. The 

 native — bless his soul ! — never knows it exists; he is the great 

 modern example of the gentleman with a beam in his own 

 eye industriously engaged in watching the mote in his neigh- 

 bor's. And the more he watches the bigger he thinks that 

 mote is, until he can see nothing else, and his new neighbors 

 are forthwith catalogued among the impossibles. 



Of course the newcomer has, by this time, reached an 

 identical view concerning the old timer. Then the merry war 

 goes on, neither side seeing the merit of the other, neither rec- 

 ognizing a common meeting ground, neither willing to make 

 the smallest concession. It is a state of silent feud for which 

 there is no real cure, since the fundamental fact of importance 

 is that while the newcomer may make concessions, or be 

 willing to do so, the native knows nothing of the give-and- 

 take game, and entrenches himself within his amazing fort- 

 ress of earth-aristocracy. The mere fact that a city man will 

 move out into the country is fine evidence of a certain adapt- 

 ability, since he shows, by this act, a willingness to try to 

 adapt himself to the conditions of a new and untried life. 

 But the old-time countryman stands everlastingly on his 

 native soil. He may laugh at the city man; he is less apt to 

 laugh with him. 



The well-intended ladies and gentlemen who make a pro- 

 fession of writing on the merits of country life rarely take 

 into consideration the social conditions and problems that are 

 bound to arise with it. They tell us, and sometimes at great 

 length, of what kind of houses to build and where; they 

 describe the furnishings; they tell us what sort of animals 

 we may raise and how we may raise them; incidentally they 

 often give detailed estimates of profits; but they have little 

 to say on the mental side of country living which, with most 

 people, is apt to be manifested in social intercourse. As a 

 matter of fact this is one of the most important aspects of 

 domestic life, if not the most important. Men seldom realize 

 it as fully as women, for the men folk generally go to town 

 daily, mix with their fellows, and return with a sense of hav- 

 ing lived through the day. But the women folks, often 

 enough, simply exist. If their home work engrosses them, it 

 is apt to be too heavy and wearisome; if they have an abun- 

 dance of leisure, then time hangs heavily on their hands, and 

 there is not the opportunity for the relief they crave. 



