40 
House 
& Garden 
EXTENDING SUMMER 
Take Advantage of The Early Spring and Late Autumn Months, 
and Learn What the Country side Can Offer You 
C OMMUTERS to country districts may have noticed of late 
years a strange company traveling on the trains in early 
summer and late fall. School children, boys and girls, with 
their books and their noisy enthusiasm. The younger ones are 
guarded by their fathers; the elder are quite able to travel alone. 
Finally arrived at the city, there are affectionate good-byes at the 
The children go on to school and their fathers to the 
office. 
There was a time when this was not so noticeable. Ten or fifteen 
years ago the custom of country house owners was to stay in town 
until school was closed and rush back in the autumn for the opening 
bell. It seemed to be the orthodox belief that country living began 
and ceased when the Education Board said so; that summer started 
and ended according to the dates in the almanac. This strange 
dogma was shattered, like so many of our quaint and beloved dog¬ 
mas have been of late by the realization that common sense had no 
regard for such things as educational boards and almanacs. We 
found that the clock could be moved forward, although some 
preachers at first ranted against this, apparently believing that 
Divine Providence went about the world like an expert watchmaker, 
setting the clocks. Having found the day elastic, we are now learn¬ 
ing that summer also is elastic and that the enjoyable seasons in the 
country, especially in the North, range anywhere from March 15th 
up to Christmas. 
I N thus extending summer we had been able to accomplish 
many things. 
First, we are now able to enjoy the country ourselves. In 
July and August the average country house is filled with company. 
We live from one hectic week-end to another. The grocery bills 
swell to enormous proportions. Father is obliged to take an oc¬ 
casional night off in town in order to rest up after Iris arduous 
duties as host; mother sleeps from Tuesday night till Friday brings 
the next batch of guests. One has constantly to be dressed up. It 
wouldn’t do, so custom says, for your guests to see you in gardening 
clothes. But in early spring and late autumn guests apparently 
manifest no enthusiasm for the country. The grocery bills are nor¬ 
mal again, and you go puttering about the place or tramping across 
country in any old comfortable rag that comes first to hand. To put 
it in candid and not altogether polite parlance, the country house 
owner secretly looks on the summer months as the time he runs a 
free boarding house for his relatives and friends. In early spring 
and autumn he can be himself and enjoy his family and the country. 
SECOND advantage in extending summer is that you really 
have a chance to garden adequately. The heavy work in the 
gardens comes in spring and fall months. In the spring you 
are starting the garden off—clearing off the borders of their winter 
mulch, sowing annuals, laying out the kitchen garden, and a thou¬ 
sand other duties. In the autumn there are bulbs and roots to be 
harvested, new borders to be built or old ones changed, shrubbery to 
be set out, and the kitchen garden spaded up or sowed to a cover 
crop. Such things cannot be accomplished with a houseful of 
guests, but no garden can exist unless they are done. By extending 
summer we give our gardens opportunity for the care they need. 
T O these two advantages may be added a third, and quite the 
most obvious advantage. Until you have tried the early 
spring and autumn months in the country, you will never 
know what the country really is like, or how beautiful spring and 
autumn can be. Those sharp weeks before the elms show their red¬ 
dish haze are filled with a peculiar beauty. It is the sort of beauty 
a child has just before it awakes. On all sides are to be found 
promises of the rich burgeoning that will follow—in protected 
corners the grass is delicately green, a courageous crocus appears in 
a sheltered pocket of the garden, the forsythia is just about to release 
its golden bells. In these early days you go about peeking under 
the mulch of the borders for old friends of last year, you count your 
gains and your garden casualties. Walk along country roads, and 
on all sides you see life beginning again—farmers at early plowing, 
bonfires burning up trash, windows that were closed all winter being 
Hung open to the first warm breeze. 
The late autumn months are the reverse of this. Stubble flies in 
the fields. The garden beds are mulched now, and the tender things 
hidden from the frigid blasts in pit and cold frame. Only a hint 
of autumn’s color is left. Neighboring houses that were hidden by 
the trees now stand out naked and near. The roads are hard to your 
feet and there’s a snap to the air that sets your blood atingle. 
E XTENDING summer into late autumn has its effect on the 
house. Porch furniture looks strangely out of place indoors; 
and it is hidden away till next season. If one intends to 
stay in the country through autumn, heavier curtains supplant the 
lighter fabrics of summer, slip covers are taken off the chairs, furni¬ 
ture is moved about in the living room so that it is convenient to 
the fireplace. 
Meantime the apartment or the house in town is being fitted up 
for the winter. When you finally leave the country and go back to 
town, the transition is gradual. By degrees the weather has driven 
you indoors. You return to town, and the change is no shock to you. 
You have taken all that the country has to offer you. Now you are 
ready for what the city gives. 
