House and Garden 
Existing buildings can be altered and re¬ 
formed, and nature’s myriad aspects cleverly 
adjusted to our particular needs. There 
seem but three inadmissible mistakes that 
can be made. First, building on a swampy 
site; second, building in the midst of a grove 
of trees; third, building on a site devoid of 
trees—though this last is a relatively venial 
offence which can be remedied in time. If 
one were to imagine an ideal site in the 
country for a house and establishment, of 
moderate expense, it would take the form of 
a ten- to twenty-acre tract with its narrower 
side along the southwesterly or southerly 
edge of a well-kept highway sloping from the 
highway irregularly southward to a meadow 
and rivulet, partly wooded, with an outlook 
in the middle and farther distance as fancy 
dictates. But such imaginings are vain, not 
because the reality is unattainable, but 
because of the protean shapes the desirable 
site may assume. 
In fact, there is but one way to deal in 
detail with the subject practically, and that 
is by an examination and explanation of 
actual examples photographed upon our page, 
and that we will do; contenting ourselves 
meanwhile with a few concluding observa¬ 
tions of a more general nature. 
Hitherto the onward march of improve¬ 
ment from urban to rural districts has been 
relatively slow and long before the country 
place has been overwhelmed its fate has been 
foreseen. But now, the rapid development 
of the trolley lines, pushing out in all direc¬ 
tions from the city over private rights of way, 
acquired under the power of eminent domain 
through the most sequestered nooks and cor¬ 
ners of the countryside, adds a new terror to 
rural life. 
No one apparently is safe, nor is any topo¬ 
graphical position impregnable, and while 
we survey our homestead, secure in possession 
and planning new beauties to be added to 
its charms, a real estate syndicate in the city 
is preparing a map in which it is cut up into 
rectangular lots alongside a trolley line and 
in the end resistance proves useless. Such at 
least has been the practical result in some 
recent cases. 
In considering a place for the house, con¬ 
sider also the garden, and do not determine 
the one without the other; and in placing the 
garden let it be for your own, rather than the 
general public’s delight, if the choice is forced 
upon you. Let it be where the intimate 
family rooms will look out upon it, rather 
than the more public ones, if both cannot. 
Take such advantage as you may of tree 
clumps and let your house be so placed with 
reference to them as to shield the western 
and northern sides, rather than the eastern, 
and especially not the southern. 
Planting out, and the location of roads and 
paths, and other details belong to another 
held of design and cannot be considered here. 
Sites for houses of the marine type are also 
somewhat elastic in their requirements, but 
not nearly so much so as are rural ones, 
owing to the paramount importance of pre¬ 
serving to its fullest extent the sea view and 
making it available for the maximum num¬ 
ber of windows and verandas. As has 
already been explained, this, in the majority 
of instances, results in a longish parallelo- 
grammic plan (with the service wing twisted 
slightly back, out of the way of the seaward 
view), having both the principal and service 
entrances on the landward rather than on the 
seaward side. 
It will hardly be profitable to generalize 
about unknown sites for the home at further 
length. Following this paper, and supple¬ 
mentary to it, a series of illustrations will be 
published in House and Garden, from time 
to time, each typical of one of the cases 
already discussed. In the September number 
will appear a city house upon a most wisely 
selected and economical site, in which, by a 
judicious adjustment of house to lot, a far bet¬ 
ter result has been obtained in a minor street 
with less cost than would have been possible 
in either of the adjoining and more imposing 
thoroughfares at twice the expense. 
The first paper from our staff of expert 
contributors, addressed to borne makers, 
written by Mr. Wm. H. Price, on The 
Value and Use of Simple Materials in House 
Building, fully illustrated, will also appear in 
the September issue of House and Garden. 
( Concluded ) 
