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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



April, 1907 



Monthly Comment 



PRIL is the very busiest month in the year. 

 To those living in the country it is a period 

 of continuous effort, put forth at all hours 

 of the day, and only ceasing at night 

 through sheer lack of ability to proceed 

 without rest. It is tiresome, of course, as 

 all labor is, and exhausting as well; but the 

 results of good effort, well applied, will in the end yield 

 ample compensation. For on what is done now will depend, 

 in large measure, the amount of personal enjoyment one is to 

 derive from one's country house. Whether one grows vege- 

 tables, flowers, or fruits, this is the time of all times when 

 plans must be realized and the necessary preliminary labor 

 expended that results be assured. And it pays, and pays well. 

 Not financially, of course, for unless one mal<^es a business of 

 living in the country one must be prepared for all sorts of 

 expenses for the pleasure of doing so. But it will pay in satis- 

 faction and in enjoyment; and that, in some respects, is the 

 greatest of all compensation. 



But the labors of April are not confined to those put forth 

 by man. It is the awakening month of nature, stirring from 

 her profound sleep during the cold months of winter. The 

 grass is never so fresh and green as when it takes on its first 

 growth of spring and envelops the hills and fields with their 

 first coating of verdure. The fiowers seem never so lovely 

 as when the earliest of the season's blooms first open their 

 gentle cups of beauty. Gorgeous as the countryside is in the 

 late fall, its then splendid beauty seems almost coarse com- 

 pared with the soft greens of spring. And later will come 

 the blossoming of the trees and their leafing, and all nature 

 is clothed with its great new garment, never so lovely as when 

 fresh and new, unsoiled with the summer's heat. There are a 

 thousand things to watch and love in this joyous season, thou- 

 sands and thousands, the very smallest with a rare beauty 

 of its own; and all yours, for your own delighting, if you will 

 but look, and gaze and understand. 



No ONE should move into the country, even for a tem- 

 porary sojourn, without being alive to its beauties, and, to 

 speak somewhat pedantically, aware of its advantages as a 

 place of residence. One must love the country, or be pre- 

 pared to love it, or one had better remain away from it. It is 

 quite true that it is possible to have space and air in suburban 

 and rural districts which are never to be found in the built-up 

 portion of a city ; but to move out into the country, especially 

 as a place of permanent residence, with such ideas as the sole 

 motives, is tolerably certain to end disastrously. One must 

 have a real affection for hills and fields and trees and woods, 

 for flowers and farms, for live stock, perhaps, for the quiet 

 of country living by all means. It will be vastly dull other- 

 wise. If the banging of the trolley gong is essential to your 

 repose at night, never for a moment imagine you can sleep in 

 the perfect stillness of the country, where no noise sounds 

 louder at night than the hum of the insect, unless it be the 

 hooting of an owl or the ceaseless song of the whip-poorwill. 

 Don't try it at all unless you like it; don't try it unless you 

 think you are going to like it; and, better still, don't try it if 

 you think you are going to like it without a preliminary 

 temporary sojourn. In a general way it is the easiest thing 

 in the world to buy country real estate ; it is sometimes some- 

 what difficult to sell it, especially if you are in a hurry to do so. 



In endeavoring to get the best for one's money in building 

 a house, attention is chiefly directed to the matter of cost. 



That, of course, is so important a subject that it can never be 

 lost sight of, but it is often a quite mistaken idea to regard it 

 as the one essential thing in house building. A successful 

 building operation is one in which a due economy is exercised 

 at every stage. There should be no waste, either of materials 

 or of funds; there should be no waste by the use of poor ma- 

 terials or improper construction. The builder or owner, as 

 the case may be, is entitled to full value for his money. There 

 are, however, other considerations which enter into the build- 

 ing of a house, or which should do so, considerations quite as 

 important as getting good material and good workmanship. 

 And these may be summed up in the phrase, questions of art 

 or questions of beauty. The person who spends five thou- 

 sand dollars for his house, or ten times as much or more, is 

 entitled to an artistic return, quite as much as a material re- 

 turn. His house must not only be well built, but be good to 

 look at, or it will be as great a failure as a house as any 

 structure can be. 



This is no new doctrine, but it is one that, even in this day 

 of architectural progress and interest, is by no means under- 

 stood or appreciated. One has but to look at the multitude 

 of dwellings e\ en now in progress of erection to realize how 

 many houses are being built without due regard to esthetic 

 questions. There is nothing easier than to injure an exquisite 

 landscape by a commonplace dwelling, and the thing is so 

 easy that it is being done everywhere, to-day, to-morrow, and 

 perhaps for many, many days to come. The reason for this 

 state of things is, of course, very clear; people do not care; 

 they do not know ; they do not understand. And, of course, 

 it is easy to ask: Why should one spend money for a mere 

 matter of looks when one neither cares nor understands? 

 There is no answer save to regret that, to such persons, is 

 given the ability to build houses. 



Beauty in houses, as in all kinds of buildings, is not some- 

 thing to be purchased by the cubic yard or by the foot; it is 

 not something added on to a house after the structural parts 

 have been finished with, but is itself a part of the structure. 

 In other words the beauty of a house begins with the ground 

 plan; it is added in the materials; it is increased in the shapes 

 and forms; it is finally achieved in the completed structure. 

 It is not given to every one to accomplish beautiful results 

 even with painstaking care and effort. Because one is an 

 architect and has been trained in all the details of his pro- 

 fession does not make him a beautiful designer nor even a 

 judge of beauty of any kind. The trained man is more likely 

 to accomplish a beautiful result than the untrained; the archi- 

 tect will be more apt to design a beautiful house than the 

 builder or carpenter whom one calls in because he is so cheap; 

 but the mere employment of an architect will not ensure a 

 beautiful house; else why are so many commonplace houses 

 built by architects? 



Never build a house unless it is well built. Never build a 

 house unless it is suited to the needs of its owner and is sani- 

 tary and healthful in every respect. Never build a house 

 with poor materials and in a poor way. And never build a 

 house unless it is a good looking one, possessed of real beauty, 

 if possible, but at least handsome enough to escape being 

 embarrassing to the trees and grasses that surround it. Not 

 all of these rules are followed in designing modern houses, 

 but this would be a more beautiful world — and a better one — 

 were they regarded, as they should be, as universally 

 essential. 



