PART I. A COUNTRY RESIDENCE. 6l9 



superintendant to conduct the whole, agreeably to the ap- 

 proved plans; to take in the estimates of workmen for small 

 jobs, as quarrying, hewing, furnishing materials, &c. and to 

 make stated reports of the progress and expenses to the propri- 

 etor's steward or attorney; from whom he receives money to 

 make the requisite weekly or monthly payments. A large job 

 in planting is when upwards of five hundred acres are to be 

 planted or sown; and here the proprietor should engage a per- 

 son well acquainted with the nursery business, who shall form 

 a nursery, and every year plant so many acres, until he has 

 completed the whole. From what I have seen and experi- 

 enced, I have every reason to believe that these principles are 

 well founded. 



Nothing can be a more profitable and agreeable recreation, 

 than for a proprietor in person to be inspecting, and occasionally 

 making enquiries into, the business going on at his residence, 

 whether in extensive works executing by estimate, or in larger 

 ones done on a grand scale. And nothing will contribute so 

 much to health and good spirits, as designing and directing 

 the execution of small jobs by his own labourers. These jobs, 

 gradually completing under his auspicious eye, from rough 

 outlines, become finished pieces. A general outline laid down, 

 and gradually filled up, in this, no less than in every other 

 condition of human life, is one of the most permanent sources 

 of heartfelt satisfaction and rational entertainment. 



