Tf>e, A^ CORNELL UNIVERSIXX LIBRARIES ITHACA, N.Y. 14853 Fine Arts Library Sibley Hail \ ^^\!^<^Q< 5^^ ^ 35UM3 Cornell University Library S 521.S27 How to make a country place; an account o 3 1924 016 184 438 DATE DUE } 'M^S^ msm igjIiJmmnDI mm t / 1 CAYLOIVD PMINTCDIMU.S.A. -u^ -"^ HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE TO THE MEMORY OF ANN MARIA DILLAWAY SAWYER MY MOTHER WHO FOSTERED IN ME A LOVE OF THE COUNTRY <::t> cS>n.-Ov:<; t-i^tf-^t^" S^j^rf^ ^'^oiX^ -^^CJ 6c9Gfi7 c-v-o,rL &>tcL^rr7 'SK^-i ^^r^i'-C' «=t/rLc^ -coHc cx>cci c-o KoK - THE FARM AS WK FOUND IT, AND HOW WE CHANGIOD ITS FACE AND SKYLINE. How To Make a Country Place An Account of the Successes and the Mistakes of an Amateur in Thirty-five years of Fjarming, Building, and Development: Together with a Practical Plan for Securing a Home and An Independent Income, Starting with Small Capital By JOSEPH DILLAWAY SAWYER Illustrated NEW YORK ORANGE JUDD COMPANY LONDON Kegan Pai-l, Trench, Trubner t^- Co., Limited 1914 Copyright, J9l4, by JOSEPH D. SAWYER All Righti Reser'ved Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England Printed in U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The Farm — Remodeling the Farm House — Hygiene — Water Supply — Sewage — Farm Lawn — Animals — The Dairy — Poultry — Bees — Star Gazing CHAPTER n. Our Birds — Fruit — Insects — Farm Help — Boys' Cabin — Pets — Forestry — Game Preserve — Hedges — Roads — Gutters — Ice — Play Side of Farming — County Fair — Sy'mptoms of Build- ing Mania 35 CHAPTER III. Evolution of Farmarcadia into Hillcrest Manor, Beginning With the Arboretum — Tree Planting — Anywhere Plants — Wonder Tree — Horticultural Alphabet — Poet's Corner — Pruning — Blue Ribbon Six — Forest Thinning — Maple Sugar Harvest — Bugs and Butterflies — "Yarbs" — Wild Garden — Bogland — Try-out Nursery 11 CHAPTER IV. Hilltop — Stony Crest — The Gables — Buena Vista — Hillcrest House — Storm King — Stonehenge — Sky" Rock — Brier Cliff — Croftleigh House — Cliffmont — Breezemont — Ledges — Drachenfels — Island House — Crossways — Red Towers.... 105 CHAPTER V. Bellerica — White Rock — Yachtsman's Shelter — Shore Rocks 157 CHAPTER VI. Pinnacle, the House Ideal, yet Thoroughly Practical — Home 211 CHAPTER VH. Bungalo-is.'s- Restcliff — Portable House — Cliff Eyrie — Tiny Cote — Crags — Fairview — Tree Top — Heartsease — Sea Boulders 245 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII. How TO Build, and Keep Within the Limit Decided Upon, a Livable House for from $2,500 to $12,000 — A Mansion up to $100,000 281 CHAPTER IX. Dry Technique op Building, Written for the Amateur 29.3 CHAPTER X. How to Become a Householder With Twenty Tenants in Your Employ, Starting With a Capital of $2,000 331 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Acme of Contentment 18 Adding to the Domicile 60 A Few Thnigs tliat Happened to the Farm 46 Aggravating Fence Rows 48 Alice 271 Alice from Aloft 271 Alice under Headway 260 All Aboard 195 An Easterly at Work with a Will 163 Angora Aurea 76, 114 Arboretum 30, 46, 54, 56, 66, 70 Arboretum Drive 139 Arboretum, Snow-blanketed. .54, 117 Arboretum, the Second Year... 54 Arch under Gazebo 173 Argosy 264, 271 At Home ; The Cot 60 At the Mooring Ill At the Pier 166 Ausalile Jr 52, 67 Back Lane 62 Balcony 177 Balustrade 195 Bare Ground to Dense Foliage. 128 Barnyard 56 Barnyard that Faced the Dining Room 36 Bathing Beach 198 Beach and Rock 185 Becalmed 202 Becalmed, "Bejiggered" 272 Beginnings of Motor Cave 275 Bellerica 157, 192, 267 Bellerica ( Summer ) 267 Bellerica (Winter ) 267 Belvedere 173, 182, 191, 207 Big Bay Window 180, 187 Biggest Corn Field 16 Big Opening in Wall of Sea Boulders 275 Big Four 109 Bit of the Beach 181 Black Pearl 17 BHzzard of 1S88 43 Boat Cave... 184 Boat on which Perilous Trip Was Made 286 Boat that Drew Four Inches... 271 Boat Ways 259 Boating Layout 191 Boston Hip 76 Both Gentle 12 Bouldered Entrance 246 Boy and the Flag 176 Breakfast Alcove 187 Breakfast Room Window 173 Breeze Points 265 Breezemont 42, 46, 117 Breezemont, Double-decked 139' Breezemont Floor Plans. .. .109, 138 Breezemont from Outline to Finish 139 Breezemont, How We Built It.. 139 Breezemont, Our Best House... 139 Bridge between Our Manhattan and Bronx 76, 136 Briercliff, Four Seasons 131, 133 Briercliff Growing from Cliffy. 131, 46 Brunette 253 Buena \'ista 38, 44, 46, 118 Buena \"ista Floor Plans 109 Buena \'ista, Interior 50 Buena Vista, North Front 116 Buena \'ista Site 112 Buena Vista, South and East Fronts 116 Buena \"ista. South Front 116 Builder Foreman 52 Building of Crossways 149 Building of the Big House .... 126 Building the Arch 123 Bungalow Chien 20 Bungalow Ideal 278 Bungalow Second 250 Butlery Door 177 Big Crop 48 Caller Who Crossed the Thresh- old 176^ Callers 12 Canopied \'eranda 298 Care-free 288 Care-free Days 260 Care-free Hours 186 Careless Handling 272 Carved by the Elements 186 Casement Doors 168 Cattle Barns 30 Cattle Yard 30, 76 Cedar Arbor 256 Cement Reinforced \"eranda.... 202 Changes 165- Changing the Farm.... 36, 38, 40, 44 Cherry Lane 52, 54 ILLUSTRATIONS Chickens Are Safe 18 Children's Bathing Pool 173, 191, 204 Chums 20 Cliff Eyrie ...258, 269, 276, 279, 286 Clift'mont 138 Cliffmont, Framing and Finish- ing 40, 46 Close Quarters 255 Closet Windowed Rooms 178 Clothes Chute Closet 194 Cloud in the West 48 College Full Back 8 Commencement of Hostilities... 6 Concrete Steps 182 Congratulating Self 286 Connecticut Capri 201 Conservatory 165, 178, 182, 190, 195, 196 Conservatory Fountain 191 Construction in Varied Stages.. 167 Continental Water Wheel 6 Corner of Pier 204 Corner Windows 177 Cot 60 Cot Bedroom 62 Cot Layout 114 Covering the Hay Field. 46 Crags 192, 261, 267, 276, 286 Crags Entrance Posts 263 Crags. Oi'f for Cape Ann 261 Crags Site, Bare 262 Crags Site, before and after.... 165 Crags Site, Where We Built Shore Rocks 168 Crags Ten Years Later 261 Crags Veranda 263 Croftleigh House ....40, 46, 64, 134 Cromlech House 40, 42, 114 Crossways Cruelty of Wind and Wave . 152 259 Day We Raised the Roof Ill Dead Calm 265 Death Throes 50 Details of Husbandry 66 Diagonal Braced Boarding 167 Dining Room, Barreled Ceiling. 180 Dining Room Window 177 Diving 163 Diving Pier 171, 256 Diverse Dives of Divers 255 Dodo, the Glutton 12, 114 Doggies 114 Dogs SO Dogs and Their Masters 151 Dogs of High Degree 20 "Don't" 20 Door of Hospitality 177 Door to the Loggia 177 Drachenfels 142 Drachenfels, Bilhard Room, Fireplace 149 Drachenfels, Dining Room .... 149 East Front 148 Lawns of 149 North Entrance 148 South Front 148 Twelve-foot Stair 149 Each Planned to Fit the Site... 42 Ear-labeled 14 East Terrace Entrance 4 Easterly on the Rocks 182 Eaton's Neck 196 Edging the Sea 185 Eighteen-foot Wide Bay 177 Elementals 156 Embowered Farm House 56 Embracing Trees 148 English Windows 172, 185 Entering the Cave 204 Entrance Gate, Summer 128 Entrance Gate, Winter 128 Entrance Hall 200, 203 Entrance Hall of Pinnacle 210 Entrance to Hillcrest Farm and Manor 128 Entrance to Yacht Pier 185 Esplanade 181, 191 Esplanade Canopy 168 Evening 16 Expecting Callers 12 E.xuberance of Youth 6 Fairview 270 Fallen Grandeur 68 Falls, Boundary of 64 Falls, Major 44, 50 Falls That Really Fall 64 Farm as We Found It and How We Changed It 36 Farm Dooryard 54 Farm Hennery 114 Farm House 42 Farm House and Its Next Door Nei.ghbor 44 Farm Lawn 21, 54 Farm Leaks 48 Farm Views 31, 36, 54, 70 Farm Warder 30 Fifteen-foot Doorway 279 Fifty-foot Dive ' 255 Final Stopping Place 32 Fireplace with Ten-foot Eight- inch Opening 187 First House on Water Front... 253 First Steps in Building Mania.. 245 First Swimming Lesson 256 Fisher Folk 271 Fishing 286 Fishing from the \'eranda E.xtension 202 Fishing in Comfort 195 Five View Points on tlie Farm. 64 Flagpole 201 ILLUSTRATIONS Flames Glowing up Chimney... 178 Floor Plans : Bellerica, Crags, Fairview, Tiny Cote, Tree Top, White Rock 269, 336 Breezemont, Buena Vista, Hill- crest House, Stony Crest... 109 Flying Arch 176, 182, 185, 196 Forces Known and Unknown... 156 Forest Primeval 117 Foundation Work for Gazebo . . 201 Fountain 191 Four Seasons on the Farm 30 Freedom of the Wild 276 Frisky 182, 263 From Boat to Veranda 207 From Shack to IVIansion 50 From Skeleton to Finished Product 166 From the Ground Upward 166 Frontispiece : Farm as We Found It and How We Changed Its Face and Sky Line Frozen Waves 280 Furling Sail 266 Gables 42, 46, 113 Gargoj'le Grotesque 177 Gateway 165 Gathering and Gathered Storm.. 280 Gazebo, Building of 167, 195 Geologist's Paradise 206 Georgian Window 195 Getting under Way 141 Glanders Consultation 8 Glass Walled Room 234 Glimpses of the Sea 176 Going, Going, Gone ! 255 Grapery Hot-bed Sash 52 Grip of Ice King 171 Grotto 168, 196, 202 Grotto Labyrinths 202 Growing from Cliff 112 Guarded Doorway 186 Guarded Step 178 Harbor 199 Harbor Entrance 205 Harbor View 159 Hay Barn 16 Hay Crop 48 Haying 48 Headed for the Mooring 272 Health Building 260 Heartsease 149. 192, 273 Herd of Cattle 14 Heydey Days 263 Hilar-ious Artemus 24 Hillcrest Farm 4, 46, 54 Hillcrest Farm and Its Nearest Xeighbor 131 Hillcrest, the Metamorphosed Farm 137 Hillcrest House : Well House, Pergola, and Greenhouse 125 Arch, and Arch, and Arch. . . . 127 Bold Bare Site 123 Framing Veranda Roof 126 Gardens 125 Gym, and Porte Cochere 92 Men Behind Hammer and Saw 123 On the Stocks 123 Stables 40 Stone- framed Landscape Where Seven Arches Meet 127 Hot -bed Sash Greenhouse.... 54 Pergola . . ._ 123 Porte Cochere Fireplace 123 Rushing Work 126 Site 120 Skeleton in Veranda Squaring the Sills 126 Steps and Caps Are Single Stones 123 Hillcrest House 38, 46, 48, 106, 119, 121 Hillcrest House Floor Plans.... 109 Hilltop 38, 40, 46, 56, 105 Hilltop Floor Plans 106 Home 245 Home from Nome 8 Home Greeter, Double A 28 Home of the Commoners 16 Horse Barn 17, 30 Horse Home 23 House Spacing 112 House That Edged a Forest.... 148 House That Spanned a Citv Block '. Ill House That Strolled Inland... 32 How the Unassuming Acres Changed Front 40 How We Deadened a Floor.... 275 Humble Servitors 66 Ice-bordered Coast Line 164 Ice-bound Coast 250 Ice Field 136 Ice Field Out of Commission. 50, 65 Ice King's Grip 171 Ice Pond 16 Ice-tied Waters 253 Icicled Clothes Line 286 Igloo 12 Indented Platform 202 Infancy, Youth and Age 186 Infront and Outfront of Crags 262 Interior Glass Doors 178 In the Shadow, — in the Sun- light—of Life 182 Inspecting the Topsail 256 Island House 148, 150 Island Road 148 January Plunge 255 ILLUSTRATIONS Joy of the Manse. Joy Unconfined . . . Joys of Farming. . . 10 10 10 Laddie 8, 260 Laddie Stood for Aljsolute Fealty 260 Land and Water Home 279 Landing at the Pier 176 Land-locked Harbor 196 Land-locked Motor Boat Lagoon 173 Last Boat 264 Last of Thirty Steps in Building 161 Laundry Tulis 194 Lawn 165, 195 Laze of the Sea 266 Leaves of Oaks of Mamre 82 Leaving Its Century Home 32 Ledges 42, 46, 76, 140 First Framing 141 Feudal Tower 141 Mediaeval Slit Window 141 Ledge Landing Steps at Low Tide 192 Left In' the Glacier 201 Leo, Warder of Farm Gates.... 25 Leviathan Half Buried 185 Library 190 Life 186 Life's Beginning 114 Lightning 6 Lightning, the Space Conqueror 12 Limpid Pool 44 Little jMother 10 Live and Dead Waters 259 Living Hobby Horse 20 Living Picture 20 Living Room, East Side 172 Lofty Entrance Hall 177 Log ' Splitting 276 Long Way from Shore 256 Lookout 280 Lotus Eating Days for Lad and Laddie Lower Falls 56 Low Tide 181 Maine Coast in Connecticut.... 253 Making a Landing 173 Manorial and in Some Features Baronial 143 Man's Coml)at with Nature 201 Marooned Clothes Reel 272 Marquee on Lawn _. . 114 Marquise 176, 18.t Mayflower Cedar 258 Meeting the Train 151 Mediaeval Stair 112 Metamorphosed Farm 50 Mezzanine Floor 178 Mianus, The 50 Mianus Rapids 56 Midnight Photo 280 Mile Off Shore 256 Milking Time 14 Million Oysters 196 Mhistrels' Balcony 177, 178 Mirage Rooms 170 Modernized Farm House 136 Mood Antipodal 10 Mooring 272 Moorish Castle 114 Morning Canter 10 Motor Boat Cave 176 Motor Boat Cave under \"er- anda 279 Motor That Moved the House.. 32 Munyon 24, 30 Murder Will Out .39 Musicians' Balcony 200 Nearing the Wire 44 Neil 165 New Arrival 114 New Entrance, Looking South.. 128 Nineteen Steps in Building Plus Eight Steps More 167 No! It's a Dog 151 No Pitfalls 256 North Front 165 Not an Ej'elash Moved 10 Now 285 Numl)er Ten 255 Oak of Two and One-half Cen- turies 168 Off! 181 Off for Cape Ann 18 Off for School 18 "On Guard To-Night" 196 On ilischief Bent 253 On the Beach 198 On the Shores of Time and Long Island Sound 256 Once in Twenty Years 233 One Goal 256 One Invoice of Live Stock 18 One of the Advantages of Water Front Life 186 One Trio 20 Open Door 176 Open Sound Front 160 Orchard 50 Original Farm House 36 Our Boats 266 Our First Boat 264 Outdoor Bedroom 176 Ontfront and Infront 169 Outlook from Farm 137 Outside Landing Steps, Pier and Swimming Pool 192 Panel along Graffito Lines 195 Pastime and Labor on the Farm 114 Pasture Bars 56 Paul Revere Knocker 217 Pennv a Liner to a Yaclit 26 + Pergola 176, 185 Pcrgolad Clothes Yard 191 Perpendicular 255 ILLUSTRATIONS Pets uf High Degree 20 Picknicing 192 Picture Window 173 Pictured Tale of a Tail 28 Pier and Landing Steps 159 Pier, Lounging Corner 184 Piggery, Outdoor 16 Pin Money 10, 26 Pinnacle 210, 211 Ce'lar il East Outer Front 210 ^'\'est Inner Front 210 Pinnacle .Site 50 Pinnacle, tlie House Ideal 210 Pioneer Bungalowing 250, 268 Placidity 50 Play Side of Farming 6 Playing at "Work \ 65 Polishing" the Groimds 42, 60 Porch Beamed Ceiling 176 Porch Room ^ 168, 172, 198 Porch Room, Soutli and West.. 175 Portaljle House 253 Porte Cochere 50 Posing 263 Posts Unscreened 70 Posts Wider at Top 147 Primitive Labor Saver 123 Princeton Tiger 26 Prolitless Scythe 48 Racial Divisions 196 Rafting 286 Rain Coming 56 Raising Old Glory 176 Rapids of the Mianus 50 Reaching for the Goal 181 Ready for Calking Iron 272 Ready for the Curtains 52 Red Towers, Conservatory 76 Red Towers 46, 153 Responsibility 10 RestcliiT . . .' 250, 252 Restful AVork 196 Ribs of Wreck 280 Rollins' Nest on tlie Mowing- Knives 56 Rock-ribbed Shore 267 Rock Esplanade 181 Rough Landing Spot 280 Roughed-out Pier 285 Rugged Lee Shore 250 Rugged Stone Walls 123 Sailing the Deep Blue Sea 265 Scant Headway 266 Scoop Dive 279 Scudding to Harbor 263 Sea Boulders 274, 278, 279 Enilt Over the Sea 278 Inglenook 278 Northeast Front 278 Ship-kneed Brackets 278 Sea Boulder Chimney Building.. 275 Second Step in Building Mania 246 .Seedling Pound Apple Tree 54 .Seeing One's Self 296 Self-sufficienc3' of Youth 255 Servants' Entrance 202 Servants' Stair 192 Service Gate 165, 191, 201 Service Gate, Outward 205 Service Path 201 Shacks Edging Break-neck Hill 50 Shaded Breeze Point 195 Shadow Pictures 256 Sheltered Harbor 164, 186 Sheltered Lagoon 179 .Shelving Beach 202 Ship-kneed Brackets 275 "ihip-shape 266 Shore Front of Restcliff 285 Shore Rocks 209 Shore Rocks. Floor Plan 162 Shore Rocks Site 160, 163 Shoulder Pet 18 Shower 185 5hru]> and Tree Grr.wth 4 Siamese Twins 256 Silo and Cattle Barn 56 Single Door 203 Single Door, 7x9 191 Siren in Apple Orchard 40 Site of Shore Rocks 263 Sitting on the Ribs of Wreck.. 280 Sleepins' Porch 170. 176. 177, 178, 194 Solid Balustrade 185 Soon to Leave Home 20 Southwest Corner 196 S. O. S 202 Somersaulting 6 Spaced to Avoid Conflict 48 Spot 8. 67 Staircase Hall 197, 203 Staircase Hall of Pinnacle 210 .Stairway Twenty Feet \\'ide.... 190 Step from \'eranda to Deck.... 195 .Steps in Building 52 Steps to the Beach 186 Steps to the Yacht Pier 186 Still and Quick Life 285 Still Life 151 Stilts SO Stirring the AA'aters 285 Stone and AA'ood Skeleton 127 Stone Arch 201 Stone Barriers 30 Stone Bulwark 182 .Stone Flower Cup 201 Stone Framed Landscape 119 Stonehenge 130 Stone Pillar 201 Stone Shark 259 Stonycrest 40, 42, 46, 70 First Year. Fifth Year. ILLUSTRATIONS Stonycrest Addition 108 Construction 108 Floor Plans 109, 110 Details Ill Ingle 52 Finished 151 Storm-beaten Undercliff 259 Storm King 42, 46, 129 Storm King's Architect 114 Studio ^^'indow 177 Study in Rock Formation 181 Summer Idyl 266 .Summer Stream 67 Summer Tent 12 Swimming Goal 181 Swimming Pool 207 Swinging the Compass from North to South 143 Swirling, Half-frozen Waters... 64 Swirling Rapids 44, 70 Take Us Off 186 Taromina 264 Taurus 16 Temporary Visitor 6 Ten Feet of Icicles ; Ten Feet of \'erdure 298 Tenderfoot 12 Tennysonian Roof 117 Things That Happened to the Farm 46 Thoroughbreds 12 Three of the Changes 38 Three Type Veranda 298 Three Worlds 279 Tigers of Three Degrees 265 Tiled Roof and Sides of Red Towers 76 Tiled Yacht Pier 179, 181 Tiny Cote 258 Tobogganing 6 "Too Small" (Cot) 60 Topsy, Horse of Courage 18, 56 Topsy Turvying Nature 44 To the Gazebo 202 Training for Wild West Show.. 8 Tree and Shrub Growth 107 Tree Growing through Veranda 298 Tree Room 192 Treeless 286 Treeless Knoll 106 Tudor Arch 176, 182, 195 "Tum In, the Water's Fine" .... 256 Twelve-foot Stairway 145 Twin Chimneys 142, 148 Two and One-half Centuries... 256 Two Colonels 8 Two Hundred and Twenty-five Windows 166 Two-mile Floral Border 44, 54 Two of Our Bungalc 279 Under Full Headway i2 Underbill House 76 Under the Apple Blossoms 114 Unhappy Family 20 United Family 114 Upper Balcony 173, 174, 176 Utilizing Stone Walls Ill \'acation 8 A'aried Action 186 Veranda 186 Viburnum Plicatum 56 View from Gazebo 185 View from Heartsease 192 View of the Offing 202 View Through Sea Boulders. . . . 275 Vine-screened Ice House 114 Waiting at the Gate 6 Wash Day at the Cot 6 Wavside 12, 18, 30, i2. 76 AVell 10 A\'ell, What's Wanted 20 West End of Pier 184 AVest Front 167. 169 Western Slope 16 What the Years Brought 165 When Golf Was Young 50 AA'hen Man \\'as Young 201 Where Some of the Storm Waves Landed 141 Whimbrel 265 A\'hite Fanged \\'aves 201 White Rock 158, 250 Wide Door of Hospitality 203 Wide Veranda 147 AA'ildwood Lodge Foundation. 52, 64 Winding Stairs 143 Windows and Doors 177 A\'inter Torrent 68 Wireless Pole 201 Wireless Room 178 Wireless Station 179 W. L. S 259 Wonder Tree 78, 151 Woodland 148 Woodsy Drive 52 Working Out Interior Details.. 177 Yachtsman's Shelter 159 Yearly Cruises 267 "Yes, It's a House" 60 Young Life 266 Youthful Prowess S FOREWORD "Oh, . . . that mine adversarjr had written a book." TO that man "whose heart within him burns" to build, as well as own, his own roof-tree, the following record may be of interest. It is composed, with not over a dozen exceptions, of features used by the author in his thirty-i^ve years' experience in country living and building, including the transformation of a rough farm into a residential park at an expense aggregating over one million dollars. An endeavor has been made to give concrete information in compact, easily handled form, needed by the layman, and to lead the reader from shack to mansion, through the intermediates of plat- form tented camp, bungalow, ordinary country' house, and elaborate villa. Even many of the features used in Pinnacle, the "House Ideal," can be adapted to and made serviceable in less expensive houses. The thousand and more original photographs include country living in many of its phases, different stages of building, and emphasize improvement in the year by year growth of tree and shrub. A treatise on the making of a real country place must be inclu- sive. One member of a family may be interested in the building of a bungalow, another desires an elaborate villa and a knowledge of the construction of both. A third turns only to the pages that treat of the two mile arboretum strip of trees, shrubs, and flowers, while a fourth loves dogs, horses, and cattle, and another's realm of happiness is represented by birds and butterflies. The girls' and boys' Nirvana ranges from a real planned and pictured playhouse to pets — chipmunks and turtles ; lambs and Shetlands — and from tobogganing and snow house building to stunts in boating and bathing, while the family as a whole are interested in a safe and sane plan to gain a competence. The question asked by many seekers after country life, "Can I make my little farm pay, or what proportion of the expense will it carry," is answered from experience, and a way is shown for the city clerk with a comparatively modest income to become independent ivithin ten years. The indices of text and illustrations are intended to give a fairly complete synopsis in a ten minute perusal of the subject matter of "How to Make a Country Place", which includes hints on amateur farming, horticulture, villa and bungalow building, and general country development, as attempted by an amateur. It is hoped that some who have never built will be sufficiently interested to join the ranks of those Progressives to whom certain solons (?) of the race quote with sardonic joy that proverb of the pessi- mist, "Fools build for the wise." IJILLCREST FARM THE OLD FARM HOUSE THAT QUEENED OUR ORIGINAL ACREAGE. AFTER IT WAS MODERNIZED. HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE CHAPTER I. The Farm — Remodeling the Farm House — Hygiene — Water Supply — Sewage — Farm Lawn — Animals — The Dairy — Poultry — Bees — Star Gazing. FROM cliff dwelling to tilling the soil was a long leap, but when made enabled me to give full sway to the building mania w'lich asserted itself when I purchased "Our Farm," though we owTied it several years before development was well under way. When farming loomed as an Eldorado, I interviewed Dr. He.\a- mer of the American Agriculturist as to his opinion of the money- making possibilities for the amateur farmer, and he frankly gave his advice. Whether favorable or otherwise the reader shall judge, but I proceeded to farm, as Shakespeare puts it, "in my salad days when I was green." Here is the old farm house that queened the seventy-two acres of my first purchase, afterward increased by buying adjacent farms to two hundred and fifty acres of undulating land, rocky knoll and wooded cliffside, bordering a swiftly coursing river. Here, too, are the modernized farm house, the hay, horse and cattle barns, silo, paddocks and gardens, the arboretum and the new entrance. In fact, the photographs show some things that happened to those modest, unassuming acres during the run of the building fe^'er. A red letter day was our first day of ownership of Hillcrest Farm. The deed had been recorded by the town clerk; I was a liinilcil proprietor, and seemed to breathe more deeply as the vision of farm ownership became a reality. The Fallacious Nightmare Mortgage. After the recording of the first paper came the filing of the second, the mortgage, that nightmare of the average farmer, but which, after all, if rightly placed and the interest promptly met, IS but a temporary bugbear, and can and should be made a stepping- ■itone to final independence. If your loan is a safe one the Savings Bank is generallv as anxious to get it as you are to make it. 2 HOW ro MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE The farm house was picturesquely located, but not easily altered, though we spent upward of five thousand dollars in the attempt, only to find that the old house was an old house still. For instance, when the wind blew, windows rattled distractlngly until a wiseacre visitor suggested wooden wedges at the end of short chains fastened to the trim of each window. Remodeling the Farm House. Living in an old or remodeled house gives an opportunity for thinking up makeshifts and utilizing space. More rooin for books in the narrow library was obtained by extending bookshelves over the window tops, also into a chimney jog. Finding the old house difficult to heat, we discovered that a hinged wooden cover, tightly padded with felt at all edges, and balanced by window weights, closing-in the attic stairway, prevented heat from escaping to that unused quarter of the house — an unrailed attic stair opening, a lighted kerosene lamp, a heedless step, once presaged dire calamity. In a corner of the sitting room closet a trap door and ladder steps made a short cut to the furnace and cellar wood pile. Perhaps some of the devices were "skimble scamble," but they made for comfort. Kitchen and Pantries. The preference was for a small kitchen and large pantries, so we galleyed the range end of the big farm house kitchen and lessened the tramp across it to the dining room by building a ceiled-in butler's pantry which also aided in confining kitchen odors and clatter to that part of the house. In one corner of the room was hinged a drop shelf, and another along one side wall, while a cooking table fitted with convenient under shelf journeyed easily across the room on ball-bearing casters. Many a step to the housekeeping pantry was saved by a cupboard of translucent glass in the lower sash of a north window. Two windows placed on opposite sides of the food storage pantry quickly forced through it the ordinarily stagnant air of midsummer. That extra window owed us nothing, as it cheated the sour microbe out of many a meal. Shelves in this pantry were of slate.* Both pantry and kitchen sinks were broad and fairly deep, lessening breakage, and set five inches higher than usual, with draining boards extra \'\ide and long. One defaced copper sink we put in fine condition, even for hot water use, by a coat of prepared aluminum paint. Walls and floor shone with linoleum in one pattern of light shade. The range was inset with a metal flap twelve inches wide that crossed its upper front close to ceiling line and formed a hood and started heat and odors chimneyward. A fircless cooker was a helpful cog in the kitchen machinery. ■■^■"A domesticated toad fur two years lived in a darlvcorner uf tiic cellar pantry and made a "clean sweep" of roach, water bug, and fly and beat puss}' at driving away the elusive mouse. VANDALIZING THE REVERED PAST 3 A kitchen settle not only settled, but tabled; it also stored coal and kindling. One broad settle, its cover seat securel)' hasped, was filled with cord wood through a hinged panel in the house wall. A force pump in the kitchen connected with the well had a shut- off valve, enabling one to pump directly into the caraffe instead of the up-attic, planished copper-lined tank installed in case of accident to the ram. A water pipe over the range convenienth" filled wash buder and kettle. Room of Comfort. A practical makeshift, for not always did our out-of-a-rut inno- vations hit the bull's eye, was to place the range hot water boiler flat- wise in a pokehole jog under the eaves adjoining a bathroom. This jog was asbestos-lined, and its whole front hinged with double doors that could be hooked back to the side wall, making the bathroom synonym of comfort. Heating. One experiment was a Baltimore heater, while another was to utilize the kitchen range by using an additional hot water back appli- ance connected by pipes and radiators with a small open safety expansion tank in the attic. A third was a perforated sleeve and radiator drum surrounding the galvanized smoke flue that, protected at the floors by soapstone collars, entered the chimney high under the attic ridge. An ell room was heated by the imhygienic oxygen eating oil stove, but placed within a specially built sheet iron cylinder stove, flue connected ; another was heated and ventilated by an oil lamp treated in like manner. Vandalizing the Revered Past-* Substantial oak beam and girder construction made it possible to remove partitions, cut through doorways, inset bookshelves, and cupboards in plastered walls, change stair openings, etc., without regard to consequences, all radical improvements made at trifling cost — convincing proof that destruction is easier than construction. With bars once lowered for the entrance of minor improvements big ones speedily elbowed their way to the fore. While the carpenters were ripping into the farm house fore and aft, we increased the area of the small dining room by still farther thefts from the kitchen. Sufficient of the wall was torn through to inset a sideboard and coal and wood cupboard, the latter serving also as a kitchen shelf, while a large bay window thrown out to the north revealed a cattle yard, but it had to be, as it facili- tated "waitin' on table." Even Spot, the fox terrier, and Angora Aurea, the only cat, shared in the improvements, as a lower panel of -The farm house was built along the lines of those old houses of the late 17th and early 18th centuries that sometimes required three years to build, when the 8 x 12 and 12 x 16 beams and girts were cut in the woods and sledded in winter to the site and at leisure adzed into shape. All spikes, nails, and pegs were hand wrought and later a neighborhood raising whipped the new house into line. HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE ■0* ^t^^ mMm ,>4^,*,t*^liJ''i.i/* V '-^^ THE. EAST TEHRACE 'EBTRAIICE. THE FARM MOUSE, OUTBUILDINGS, AND APPROACH BOX GREENERY WINDOW 5 the dining room door was so adjusted that they could come and go at wilL The Keeping Room. It had long been our ambition to have an old-fashioned keeping room, and we tried it in the farm house. It was equipped with the usual urn-crowned corner cupboards, in the main peopled with mementoes and reminders of Revolutionary days. The wainscoting came from an old Colonial house we had ruthlessly torn from its two hundred year old anchorage. That wainscot had never clashed with a paint brush, and frequent holy-stonings by gude dame and house- maid had effected a satin polish. A double floor in two and one-half inch widths was laid on the first story for warmth. Less width, less shrinkage. Inexpensive chair rails and picture moldings prevented injury to plastered walls and served as members in the dado and frieze scheme in dining room and library. A low ceiling (high ceilings do not necessarily mean pure air, location of air inlet and outlet is the essential) made a short climb, but the crooked, cramped turn in the stairway forced ungainly fur- niture to travel through a window. We planned a first floor bedroom for which convenience calls in most farm houses, and altered the conventional parlor into a studio-den. A monastery sawbuck table with ebonized oak plank top har- monized with the long narrow dining room, and was easih' dis- mantled when additional space was needed for dances or games. Chimney breasts in several rooms we cemented, and while yet moist imprinted with a butter mold, perpetrating the same radical- ism in the den, the effect rendered more startling by sprinkling the design while still wet with a mixture of gold, silver, and bronze powder. To balance the roof line and sa\ e a gable \\indow on the second story a chimney was supported on trolley irons which crossed attic floor beams. A fireplace outside a chimnev breast was thus carried. Upstairs we again gleefully lapsed to the antique. The ori'jinal wide floor boards, kiln dried by Father Time for full two centuries, were firmly nailed down, old tacks remo\ed, cracks and nail holes either calked, white-leaded, or puttied, and the beau.tiful grain of «-ood brought out by sand-papering, filling, waxing and polishing. When that second floor was furnished with round and elliptical rugs (with rubber bands sewed on the under side to keep them from slip- ping), high posters with canopied testers, bed steps, lowboys, and eagle-crowned gilt mirrors, our ennuied city guest slept in another and far more restful world. Box Greenery Window. Plants «ere banished from all sleeping rooms, hut a bav in the morning room made a bower of bloom, and in the south sewing room HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE PLAY SIDE OF FARMING. MIASMATIC CELLARS 7 supported b\- heavy wooden brackets, a bo\-greenery-\\indo\v pro- jected about eighteen inches from the house line, imprisoning a bit of the June of garden, wood, and field the entire year. In putting on a new roof, the garret was heightened two feet; extra expense light, but comfort greater in that "brain room of the world." Pent eaves shaded one row of second story windows and broke the stiff high wall line, and carved barge or \'erge boards edged the gables. The Outshot. One old time and attractive external feature, the long tobog- gan roof of the "outshot," reached from the ridge to within six feet of the ground. The wide verandas we built on the south, east and west added \'astly to comfort, while the staircase hall tacked to the southeast corner and ceiled to the peak made a more suitable entrance, at the same time affording a fine background for pictures, Fiji Island spears, boarding pikes from a privateer of 1812, a sword fish, a pair of snow shoes, and other remnants of a collecting fever which at one time included stamps, coins, autographs and curios. Ne\'er again, \\o\\- ever, will we misuse a glorious southern exposure for entrance and hall, or wood-ceil an interior instead of plastering it. We plead guilty to having installed lightning rods, finials, iron cresting, and a weather vane. A couple of windows were unfortunately set diamond-wise in the staircase hall. Other transformations included three bal- conies, that meant sun and air-bathed bedding and raiment, as well as occasional naps in the open above the second story country dust line — just one-tenth of the twenty stories it generally takes in the city to banish the duster, (^ne of these balconies served as an outdoor bedroom, another for a lookout close to the chimney top, (which, by the way, was flat stone-capped to make it draw better, instead of flaunting aloft that libel against good taste, a cowl-capped zinc-swiveled chimney pot) and the third as a sun parlor. The old rule of the house painter of paintmg e\'ery th rd year the exterior and every se\enth the interior we smithereened by giving the exterior trim a coat of oil between times. In this way the out- side paint lasted five years, and as the interior, aside from rooms fin- ished in white enamel, was treated with non-odorous stain, polished, and rubbed down, we needed no cast iron nde. Miasmatic Cellars. Many changes were made in the cellar. The milk storage excavation, directly at the foot of the stairs, we at once filled in, pre- venting a second tumble. A brick cistern holding at times stagnant unaerated rain water was demolished, when, whisper it liahtly, no less than a half dozen rat skeletons, a defunct cat and some kittens 8 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE- ConSULTATIOK HAS HE- OvLAXiO-BRS? SPOT- THE, UMCOWABLB UnVtHIPPABLt UMDRrvABLE, "fOUTHFUL PROWE-SS A'ACATIC IN. UNFAILING WATER SUPPLY 9 were found. We built another cistern outside underground, dividing it unequally by a brick wall. Entering the smaller compartment, par- tially packed with charcoal, the water gradually percolated through the wall into the larger, giving us the best sort of filtered soft water, uncontaminated by soil impurities, roofs and cypress gutters being left unstained by creosote and kept scrupulously clean. Leader connections for convenient cleansing were placed close to an attic window, protected by wire leaf guards, the spout pipe for two- feet fiaring out four inches where it connected with the gutter. In order to thoroughly flush the roof before using the c'stern, a two-foot spout section near the ground siciveled at will. In a downpour ten minutes of diverted roof washings gave us pure cistern water. A crimped spout prevented ice splitting but was not as easily cared for. The cellar was first underdrained from without and within, floor dug over, soil removed, and clean gravel substituted, then grouted and cemented and ceiling tarred and whitewashed to diminish fire risk, increased of course by the presence of tar. Side walls and floors were also tarred, the surface being roughened to hold a finishing coat of cement, outside walls and footing courses cemented and tarred, and tile laid at the base. Let everything go until that cellar is thoroughly revamped. You will naturally co-operate with vegetation to purify the grounds about the back door where the kitchen drain has been pouring out dish water and refuse for a hundred years and more, but five chances to one you will ignore the condition of the cellar, and agree with the sophistry- of the forehanded farmer who sells you the property when he savs that "the dirt floor is grand to keep vegetables, cider and milk in prime condition." If the money you have is a mere pit- tance, spend it on the cellar. In a word, drain and cement it inside and out, thus eliminating all foul, germ-laden air and matter; put in more and larger windows, double sashing for winter if need be, instead of boarding and banking up with sill-decaying leaves and barn-yard refuse, in warm days rapid breeders of vermin, ilake the cellar as spick and span as the kitchen and you have won your first round in the battle against disease and ill health and outgeneraled, if only for the nonce, the white horse and his spectral rider. The cemetery fills rapidly enough without using as an additional feeder a miasma-breeding cellar. Unfailing Water Supply. One of the major requisites in country living is an ample water supply, especially where much stock is carried. Hand pumps, gaso- line engines, compressed air tanks and windmills all have limitations, an electric pump, the ideal power, was out of the question, but the only alternative, the hydraulic ram, proved a complete success from the start. Water was pushed by the drive pipe through the delivery pipe a distance of one thousand feet and raised about one hundred 10 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE A LITTLE noTHER ■BESPOriSIBlUTY .TOYS OF FARMING. THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE 11 feet, pipes protected from frost where they entered house, barn and outbuildings, and we had water in abundance both summer and winter at practicall)' no cost after the expense of installation. Nearest Approach to a Perpetual Motion Machine. The ram, a small affair a few inches square and less than twenty- five pounds in weight, was sunk in a dry, frost-proof well only eight feet deep on a side hill, hence easily underdrained to get rid of surplus water, a greater fall, we found, exerted too much pressure on the mechanism. This and the little reservoir about a dozen feet square and three feet deep were covered with planks and heaped with straw or weeds for winter protection. Though we received at the buildings with our lay-out less than one-tenth of the water t'^at passed through the pipes feeding the ram it proved more than suffi- cient and shared honors with the five per cent, mortgage on the farm, that worked day and night. House and barn tanks and cattle troughs were always full and the overflow formed a safe shallow skating rink for the children in winter and a duckling pond in sum- mer, at one end of the roomy wire fence-enclosed poultry yard, and the shallow water eased a bit the flurry and worry of the foster mother hen. If the supply of water is small and the surplus has sufficient fall, parallel lines can be laid starting from lower levels. There's hardly a farm worthy the name that cannot have at moderate cost a continual water supply without help of the exhausting pump handle which should only be used to draw for drinking purposes delicious cold water from that rock-dug well that, like pure butter and milk, is the stock boast of the average farmer.* New valves every two years costing but a trifle were the only expense. The water pipe connected with the refrigerator, and the ice rested on a coil of quarter-inch pipe, thus supplying hygienic ice water. Refrigerator drainage dripped into a dry well instead of a sewer gas- packed cesspool. Sanitary Sewage System. What to do with sewage at first puzzled us, as it does everyone in like surroundings. The solution was sanitary cesspools, made as follows. A water-tight stone and cement tank five feet square and six feet deep had two compartments, with o\erflow pipe controlled bv ball and cock and protected in a frost-proof mound. The valve opened automatically, and the liquid contents of the second com- partment discharged into three blind drains each about one hundred feet long, placed two feet below the grass roots in an orchard which sloped toward the west, thus escaping many a nipping frost. The main compartment was cleaned each winter, and copperas or "■■■On one of our farms we installed a double action ram, using the muddy water of a running brook to force pure spring water to house and barns. 12 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE ^^ W^ M^J^K ^ ^H KMPaWB^BfflS ^■ti^l ' vj^^^^^^^^HH • ; - i^jj^^B^^^^^B BOTH GBIITLB LIGHTOfflCi Br^^^^^^^^B tK« r^^^rtfH SPACB C071QUEKOR ^■' • '^ : ■ ' ! ; 1 i . M^% A i ) TEHDER 1 1 <^hV|^^ TOOT 1 H THE il/MMER TEAT DODO V9 tht ^^^^^^BVR*^' HHp^j^H GLUTTOn ^Hf l^d'^^^B otlKj BIT ^«i" ^IJ^^B FOOD 1 .4 flH THOROUGHBREDS. CONQUEST OF SEWAGE DANGERS 13 some other disinfectant thrown in lavishly, though it often seemed unnecessary, so well did the system work in connection with our house plumbing, which, as well as the cesspool, was thoroughly back-aired, and stood perfectly the peppermint medicine poured down the throated pipes to ascertain sewer gas conditions. This was done every six months, the day we paid the bank interest on the mortgage. The connecting pipe was iron instead of tile. Years afterward in a Sound front cottage we installed the same style of cement tank with a two-inch overflow pipe extending well into the Sound, and controlled by a gate-valve. Once a week, at night on the outgoing tide, opening the valve for an hour emptied the water sewage tank, and the other compartment was cleaned in the winter, as on the hill. This system proved simple, safe, sane, sanitary and successful. ■Conquest of Sewage Danger. From the time when our English ancestors hibernated like bears in a round neolithic pennpit, and later when king and churl alike dug open sewers in the floors of their dwellings, unto the dawn of modern conveniences when insanitary plumbing forced deadly sewer gas into the blood, men, like ripened grain, have fallen unnecessarily by the million before the steel of the "grim reaper." Yet through all these years of self destruction, at man's elbow, but tongue tied, stood the twin servitors, aerobic and anaerobic, minute organisms, anxious to purify his home, throttle burning fevers and lengthen his life. Har- nessed for the first time in the nineteenth century, they are doing systematic yeoman service. As absolute darkness is an essential in the work of the anaerobic microbe, while he transmutes fetid matter into the gaseous state, cesspools must be about six feet deep, yet with suitable air vent. Preliminary disintegrating surface work is per- formed by the oxygenic aerobic, that floats on the surface and passes down to his partner for final disposal all refuse. We put these twin servitors to work in the bacteria-septic-tanks afterward installed in one of our country places and they purified sewage in about twenty-four hours. The apparatus cons.sted of three siphon connected tanks — sewage tank, weir tank, and disin- fecting tank. The air vent was a small well braced galvanized iron pipe flag pole open at the top, giving an exceptional draught. The installation of two main line speaking tubes ended our list of changes. Years afterward we realized that "striving to better, oft we mar," and while sugar-loaf-tower and aggressive excrescence here and impudent protruberance there gave greater convenience, the rural restfulness of the old farm house had vanished. Better a bed of ashes and a Phoenix-risen new house. From destruction of the old generally springs a newer and better construction. 14 HOPF rO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE OHB OP THE TWmS EAR LABELED STOCK. STONE WALLS VERSUS ROADS 15 Stone Walls Versus Roads. Within a year a development began which, when completed, changed the entire aspect of the farm. The first step was to make stone ballasted main roads, well underdrained, utilizing material taken from the three miles of stone walls that straggled irregularly across ravine and pasture, swamp and hillock, some broad enough to hold a coach and four on their ivy, woodbine, and blackberjy vine-clad tops. These old walls were the hide-and-seek rendezvous and racing ground of the saucy fat chipmunk, and their deep, dank recesses at times nesting places for the black snake — the non-biting constrictor — that so realistically rounds out country life. Quite a number of these walls were formed of two distinct evenly faced ram- parts, the intervening space filled with small stones, a good old- fashioned way of clearing land, and far less shiftless than the piling of stones on ledges that occasionally outcrop on the surface. Strenuous agronomical efforts required the erection of more hay, storage, and cattle barns, also corn cribs, giving a comfortable and roomy group of buildings, taking the place of hay ricks, canvas-capped stacks, and rough-and-read}' shelters. The recurring seasons of seed- time and harvest caused bulging silo and o'erflowing barns, when again came the lumber teams and carpenters to provide new buildings for increasing crops and stock. D. L. Moody's White Farm Dwight L. Aloody, the Evangelist, once told me in most interest- ing detail of his white farm — no, not named for the fields of white daisies, but from the stock, all snow white, including horses, dogs, cats, turkeys, geese, ducks, pigeons — even mice and rabbits for the children. Our love for peerless black Topsy and the herd of Dutch belted cattle decided us to make the motif black and white, with an occasional exception in favor of some animal of rare merit. Much against my will, the scheme had to include white daisies, as well as wild carrot (Queen Ann's lace), the beautiful tracery of whose bloom belies its pernicious, destructive habit. These two horticultural vagabonds joined forces with the Canadian thistle, and, after several years' struggle, succeeded in depleting by half the one hundred ton hay crop, the financial back bone of our farm. First on the list of income producers came the dairy. The fore- man had purchased in Vermont two carloads of native cows, but these were gradually replaced by the herd of Dutch belted. Dutch Belted Cattle. How well I recollect when I first saw in one of the half dozen agricultural papers to which we subscribed the beautiful outlines of the Dutch belted (Lackenfeld) cattle, their jet black bodies com- pletely encircled with pure white blankets. This led me to Orange County, New York, where I joined the Dutch Belted Association, 16 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE. ICE ponti HOME OF THE COMMONERS. DUTCH BELTED CATTLE 17 "BLACK PEARL," QUEEN OF THE HERD. and purchased registered, ring-nosed Taurus, with a dozen or more cither prize metal-ear-labeled animals. Within a few years we owned a herd of belted cattle whose poetic names exhausted the alphabet, for they were forty strong, and at the county fairs drew admiring comments as well as honorable mention from both professional and amateur for their beautiful markings and graceful forms. To be sure, the Aberdeen-Angus Polled, and Red Polled dual purpose cattle have an element of greater safety where there are children; and among others there were Ayrshire, Guernsey, Devon and Jersey, Short-Horned and Holstein-Fresian, both beef and dairy types, from which to choose, but beauty, as well as milk yield, counted in favor of Dutch belted, many of which, ours among the number, were bred from P. T. Barnum's imported animals. At one time the live stock listed sixty cows, including yearlings, a dozen horses and colts (the raising of the latter interesting, but expensive), one hundred and fifty pigs and shotes, more or less, and poultr}- in goodly quantity. Milk. At this time the income from the dairy business averaged about $450 per month — gross. Delivery wagons marked "Hillcrest Farm," pictured a Dutch belted cow — a sort of coat of arms and guarantee to our clientele that we kept cows, and that the milk wasn't "boughten." Milk was weighed and recorded to the credit of each high bred milch cow on the score card hung beside her photograph. The stone spring house, built over a clear pebbly-bedded running HOM' TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE OTT TOR SCHOOl- vFifsuie, .yj^THi^'^^Opif ''^' *^) ■?**.. ...i ■^^^-i^ CHI CKEKS AS»E SAFE CINE INVOICE OF LIVIC STOCK. ox r'ERSUS HORSE 19 brook in \\-hich were submerged the cans, kept milk sweet in warmest weather. Later it was pasteurized, subduing the elusive coli. We also pioneered the milk bottling plan in our section and lost some good farm hands because of the additional labor entailed. Careless help not only decreased the milk yield, but incurred bad debts, due to poor judgment in the matter of credit, so before the business proved a loss we sold out the herd, with the exception of a prize trio, to a fellow enthusiast in Worcester, Massachusetts. As the beautiful, white blanketed creatures started down the road for their new home, another of our pet hobbies was unseated. With what enthusiasm I took up the theory of the late Donald G. Mitchell (Ike Marvel) in regard to keeping cows under open field sheds in summer and feeding them daily with freshly-cut fodder. But experience taught that it was more economical to make them work their own passage for six months at least, in which opinion later correspondence with Mr. Alitchell fortified me. Dobbin (i: e. Victor) harnessed to a tread mill ran the Ross cutter which inched corn for the silo. Later a gasoline engine not only cut up corn but sawed wood, whipped cream into butter, and ran the w ashing machine, until electricity flashed to the fore and banished many limitations. Ox Versus Horse. Among the animals was a prize yoke of steers, able to move a small house. But oxen were soon supplanted, as I fancied that their slow gait counteracted the entjiusiasm of the most strenuous man I could hire. This theory of mine was somewhat shaken by a farmer who argued that a pair of steers cost $125 to $200, live on hay in winter and grass in summer, and do not necessarily require grain nor roots, while horses that cost in the beginning fully three times as much are far more expensive to keep. In ten years the steers will bring more than their cost for beef, while the horses are practically used up. The steer cultivates as many acres as the horse, and if trained to it can be used in a mowing machine, and will tire the most enthusiastic plodding ploughman in a day's work. Evidently the horse has his innings with the farmer because of the necessity of getting to market quickly and the pleasure and con- venience of driving, but gauged by economics the ox is not the "has- been" the horse votary would make him out. Style is one main factor in his banishment. Losses from horse diseases often deplete the income of that farmer who neglects to insure his stock.® The Farm Lawn Versus Hayfield. No, my "would-be" farmer: cows on the lawn are not such a calamity as cows in the corn. This photograph was taken in June -■'indiscriminate salting causing immoderate tiiirst sponsored tlie death by colic of Alice our prize brood mare. 20 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE DOGS »/ HIGH DEGREE L BUJIGRLOW CmEH soon TO leaWhomI t'Ilts of high degree. FARM LAIVN VERSUS HAY FIELD 21 THE FARM LAWN. just after early haying. When the meadow grass had a setback through premature spring grazing, followed by a drought, we always hayed and occasionally grazed the lawn. Thorough work, including green soiling, application of nitrate of soda, spring and fall sprinkling of lawn seed on worn places and systematic rolling, did much toward making it quite a respectable farm lawn from mid-June until winter, spite of our stolen hay crop. We never raked off the grass cut by the lawn motor, but left it to enrich the soil. The stones that dulled it were buried to form deep draining ditches, and after thorough subsoil ploughing, manure was turned tmder, to mechanically, as well as chemically, benefit and enrich the soil. A neighbor spent more money in this process than we, going deeper, and in twenty years his lawn never browned during severe drought nor under closest clipping, the grass roots delving too deeply to be affected. Slightly curving lawn contours edged the farm house, but on the main farm lawn no attempt was made to fill abrupt depres- sions, smooth hillocks, or break up boulders and blast out ledges, having once had experience in that line to the tune of $3,U0U or more, with no pleasanter result than a yard whose stone boundary wall looked like that of a prison. Acres of adjoining land could have been bought for the money put into that unattractive wall. AVith this expensive warning, hollows in our farm lawn were padded with shrubbery, the most unsightly boulders screened with evergreens, and others partly hidden beneath asexual mosses, lichens and saphrophytic fimgi plants. In the midst of rock-strewn corners were planted vari- colored flowering plants, the shade and shelter afforded by the ever- greens enabling us to transplant from the forest a wood carpet of rare and varied velvety beauty. In one particular copse nature 22 HOM' TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE helped in working out that most difficult feature in landscape garden- ing, a natural rockery. Steep terraces were never sodded but held in place by trailing honeysuckle, transforming the usual gullied slope to banks of fragrant bloom and several ungainly stone heaps beauti- fied by the creeping pine that licked their edges and ferns of varied size and lacy texture that grew in crevice and hollow. Islands of evergreen broke the surface of the lawn, and proved citadels of refuge for a dozen or more gray squirrels whom Spot the fox terrier delighted to hector and terrorize. The Sleepless "Varmint." Though our lawn was often ridged by that animal machine of indefatigable endeavor, the earth-worm-eating-blind ground-mole, who, according to the farmer, dies when without food for more than a few hours, a steel pin trap set over his runways made his shadow grow steadily less. Candlemas Weather Prophet. Speaking of shadows, the entrances of a dozen or more ground- hog burrows scattered through the pasture lots were faithfully watched at Candlemas, February second, for signs of an early spring, but Mr. Ground-hog generally saw his shadow, returned to his hole, and we stopped sorting seed until the voice of that more reliable prophet, "the turtle, was heard in the land." Tennis Screen.* The upstart mechanical wire tennis screen edging the lawn, braced to withstand extra strain, was transformed into a green wall of beauty by plentiful plantings of honeysuckle, Dutchman's pipe, trumpet vine and moon flower, while the hole-in-the-ground green- house grew enough plants to decorate a portion of the same lawn with new old-fashioned ribbon gardening, making attractive parterres of flowers and in the fall a wide variety of bulbs was set out for spring blossoming. One of the most pleasing beds showed a mass of yellow and white tulips. Beautifying the Ugly Gravel Pit. Shrubs that grew good dirt-holding roots surfaced the sides of a yawning gravel pit, before planting the steep incline being worked to a lesser grade with a horse scoop, and retopped from an adjacent pile of loam. Profuse evergreen and shrub planting changed a dismal, barren area into a really beautiful semi-ravine, one portion closeh- resembling a grass-grown volcanic crater. Steps of old railway ties, spaced with three foot rock and gravel treads prevented washouts and half covered with vines led to the bottom of the ravine. The spraddling prostrate cypress edged the rocks, among which grew the red beaded partridge berry, while near by, at its best in blue splendor "■^"One of thf two linnis courts was flooded in winter for a children's ^afe skatinc pond THE UGLY GRAVEL PIT 23 was the vinca or periwinkle, and through the underbrush that kept alive the spirit of the wild trailed the arbutus, which in its place and season has no rival. OUR HORSE HOJIE. Four-Footed Friends. It would be difficult to say which of the four-footed friends of Hillcrest was deepest in our affections. Topsy, that mare of mares, whose quick, spirited step night or day heralded her coming, was always under voice control with us, but a stranger could not curb her speed — indeed, she often seemed to the onlooker to be running away, and more than one well disposed person tried to stop her and save ( ?) the driver's life. Hills made no difference; for nine years she mounted them at top speed, and at one time in midnight darkness leaped a deep trench in the highway, overturning barriers of planks and barrels, and kept on, with writer, gig and its contents uninjured, emphasizing the fact that spirited and intelligent horses are often safer drivers than the type represented by stupid, plodding Peggoty who gave us a gig tumble we remembered for many a day. In one field after a half night's searching we found our prize collie, Bobbie Burns, brought to us from Edinburgh. He had been deliberately murdered by some miscreant — neighborly gossip suspicioned the offender — who fed him with a piece of meat stuffed with pounded glass, as discovered by our veterinary at the autopsy. 24 HOW TO MAKE J COUNTRY PLACE "IIUNYOX." AA'HO HELD UP INTRUDERS. HILAEIUS ARTEMUS, WHO SAT UP AND TOOK NOTICE WHEN IT HAPPENED. FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDS 25 Bobby was a very discriminating dog, gentle and harmless, and looked at us with almost human eyes. He traveled to and from town so close to the forefeet of Topsy that it seemed a miracle he was not ■ . ,■-, ^ ■ "1 ■ji'^^sBBPS^^^^^^^^^'' Jk ^^^BS^HHL'- ^RHhIk?'^ M '■- H 1 i M ■■ ■■•'^■K^ 11 ^■M' ''^ ■ • '1 LEO, THE IIAGXIFICEXT, "WATCHER AND WARDER OP OUR FARM GATES. crushed. We had two romances on the Hill; one Topsy and Bobbie, the other Frisky and Spot. Spot, a prize fox-terrier, uncowable, undri\able, unwhippable, for his young master would watch any- thing in any place for hours. His boon and inseparable companion, in paddock, pasture, or harness, was Frisky, the pony. Spot's realm was in the pony cart when in motion and under it when its owner left it by the roadside, watching both pony and packages, until one day a heedless vagabond struck the pony. Spot rushed to his defense, the wretch shot him, and a second farm tragedy was enacted. Eliminating Gruesome Graves from the Farm. Fortunately for our peace of mind, no old time family grave- yard disfigured the farm, which, however secluded, is depressing, and 26 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE l-f V ^E^j^ P^^^ ^^r' ** ^^EM ^■^ ^5Si^^' r^ li mM^l^m ■ #■'"'■''■%*■<, '■, \^-^ A:\j^:, '^' ^^ W '^J 4 ,i-^»..-li',';;4, ^Z.^ ?V.!?'"S^*rVtv- '-.*'-:• ^^H ■ i-- : '-'' ■ ■"* ^r-ii^^l^'*'*'^* *■:'■■ ■' •-, v/ ■. i;?'2*^ -' ..■^■-,5 ^ k -^ ■• ■■ x, ■'. ,, « « V"- PRINCETON TIGER IN THE HOME CIRCLE. if a funeral cortege crosses the lawn it emphasizes an unpleasant division of ownership. This problem was solved in one of our prop- erties by purchasing a lot and monument in the town cemetery, removing the bodies thereto, obtaining possession of the land, and can- celing all rights of way by quitclaim deeds from the heirs. The only graveyards on the farm were in Sleepy Hollow Valley, located not to contaminate the water supply. There was the last home of the horses that served us so faithfully, and of Bobbie and his suc- cessors in our affections. The willow we planted o\'er the grave of Bobbie Burns is to-day a lofty tree. The horses never had other masters, but each had pasturage in old age, a warm corner in barn and paddock, and a grass-grown grave in the valley at life's end. There were Don, Dan, Bess, Topsy, Victor, faithful Peggoty and snow-white, speed-crazed Lightning, Chester, Frisky, and a score of others, including Alice, the daughter of renowned Amy, that never-outdistanced road mare whom we brought from Boston only to die within the week. Tragedy and pathos were often boon companions. Our Horse Boarders. One source of income was horse boarders. In bo.v stall, paddock or pasture we always had eight or ten both summer and winter, a big help in actual cash toward the farm expenses. ELIMINATING GRUESOME GRATES 21 Dogs. In twenty years' farming experience our dogs numbered legion, and were mostly of high degree — top notchers, and real com- panions, answering our slightest wish if they but understood. Leo, the king of all our St. Bernards, never failed in honesty and fealty but once, and was even then immediately ashamed of his lapse. It happened as follows, and it must be con- fessed the provocation was great: It seems that a roasted chicken had been stolen by him from a neighbor's kitchen range. It was rescued from under the trap after an argument close to the fighting line at the end of a whip, and my friend told me the ne.xt day that, lacking a neck and wing, his Sunday dinner had lost nothing and tasted good* The bulldog, Princeton Tiger, college bred with one of the boys, was pure white, the farm color. The fighting spirit he devel- oped kept him at the end of a chain when on the farm, and when thus in bondage everyone except his young master stayed at a respectful distance. Angora Aurea, called for brevity Double "A," was one never- to-be-forgotten home greeter ; the only cat who ever held a deep place in my affections. Having no vestige of the cat's occa- sional distrust of humans, he never zig-zagged, but came straight toward one with the frankness of a dog, and rarely failed after a greeting rub to crawl to my shoulder, remaining there for hours while I walked about the farm. The memory of those sharp claws as he traveled from shoulder to shoulder is still vi\'id. Brought up with dogs, he had no fear of them, but too great confidence in a treacherous cur belonging to a neighbor was his undoing, to the lasting grief of the household. His epitaph read : "Here lies a good cat who like the dog loved humans rather than locality." Vega was the proud mother of Leo, and, to be exact, of forty- nine other glorious St. Bernards with which we either gladdened or saddened forty-nine friends from Philadelphia to Boston. Their histories, as far as we followed them, showed many of remark- able size but rather testy tempers, but Vega and her royal and loyal son Leo were ever models of what dogs should be. We found St. Bernards as a rule victims of wanderlust, but for ten years V^ega watched, night and day, house, barnyard and stock until she joined the ranks of the dog majority. Some of our dogs were especially gifted in sensorial acuteness and when tried out proved fit exponents of and worthy the well known tribute of Senator Vest of Missouri to the faithful dog. While attending court in a country town he was urged by the attorneys on a dog case to help them, being offered $250 by the plaintiff. Volu- ■■■Puppyhood frequently poached in the chicken yard. When caught in the act instead of strapping the puppy we adopted the old-fashioned cure of strapping the dead chicken firmly under the murderer's neck. A couple of weeks of this mental and physical suasion engender- ed a dislike for stolen chicken for all time. 28 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE DOUBL1-; ■■A.' THE HOME GREETER, MAKING A BEE- LINE FOR HIS OWNER'S SHOULDER. VEGA. A PICTURED TALE OF A TAIL THAT WAS A TAIL. EULOGY ON THE DOG 29 minous evidence was introduced to show tliat defendant had shot the dog in malice, while other evidence went to prove that the dog had attacked the defendant. Vest was not disposed to argue the case, but, being urged, he rose, scanned the faces of the jury for a moment, and said : Eulogy on the Dog. "Gentlemen of the jur)': The best friend a man has in tne world may turn against him and become his enemy ; his son oi ■daughter, reared with loving care, may prove ungrateful ; those nearest and dearest, those we trust with our happiness and good name, may become traitors to our faith. The money that a man has he may lose — it flies away perhaps when he needs it most ; a man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill considered action ; those who are prone to fall upon their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles upon us, but the one absoluteljr unselfish friend a man can have in this world — one that never deserts him ; never proves ungrateful or treacherous — is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity or poverty, in health or sickness ; he will sleep on the cold ground where wintry winds blow, and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side ; he will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in the encounter with the roughness of the world, and he guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all others desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger; to fight against enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master, and his body is laid in the cold ground, there by the grave will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws; his eyes sad, but open in watchfulness; faithful and true even in death." Vest sat down. He had spoken low -and without gesture, ana made no reference to the merits of the case. When he had finished, judge and jury were wiping their eyes. The jury returned a verdict for $300. Plaintiff had sued for $200. When in Edinburgh, I saw that monument erected by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to the faithful dog who for many years, summer and winter, in burning heat, bitter cold, drenching rain and driving snow lay on his master's grave, leaving it onlv for the food and drink furnished by the neighboring shopkeepers, then back to h's lonely vigil until death ended his pathetic waiting. 30 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE CRTTI.E ^ATJII THi<: FOUU SEASONS ON THE FARM. POULTRY RAISING 31 Merino Sheep. Sheep? Yes, at times quite a flock, which finally dwindled to a trio of pure registered ]\Ierinos brought frflm Vermont. Two of these were found dead one morning in a corn field back of the barn, their throats gashed and flesh torn, victims of a vicious dog. We tried raising Angora goats as a business, and even had visions of adding to the county's wealth as well as our own bank account by their increase and yearly shearing, but after developing a fondness for our choicest shrubbery they too became memories. Pigs. The Green Mountain State furnished us with some chunky black Berkshire and white Yorkshire pigs, fat and solid parallelo- grams, with knobbed mouths, distended cheeks, and legs so short that they appeared almost to crawl, instead of walk. No, there were no razor-backs in the hog pens and no ringed pigs. Experience taught that if confined within small space they girdled and ruined the trees, so we gave them the run of several orchards, threw grain on the ground, partially burying it, and our animal plowshares did wonders in industriously uprooting sod and soil, resulting in far more produc- tive trees. The smokehouse, used as a roadway from the sty to the farm help table, served also at times as a miniature Libby Prison for one small boy in "knickers," whose obstreperous gaiety was thought to need occasional curbing. Here also we shut up Spot, the fox terrier, on gala nights when fire crackers and fireworks were in the air. Of these he had such hatred that he would dash angrily into their midst with utter disregard of life and limb. Poultry Raising. Of chicken farming we took deep draughts, as is usual with the amateur in this possibility-filled realm, breeding the wild squawking brown, also white, Leghorns — good layers, but poor setters or meat-producers; the phlegmatic, good-natured partridge, buff and white Cochins, feathered to their toe-nails ; the barred and white Plymouth Rock, the strutting, tufted Poland ; the silver penciled Wyandotte, the artistocratic white, buff and black Orpington, the jet black Minorca, the sprightly, trim Rhode Island Reds, the dig- nified Houdan, its illustrious descendants, the Faverolles, blue blooded Blue Andalusians, staring white faced Spanish, and the tinv, demure Bantams, who proved more intelligent than their pompous neighbors, notwithstanding the statement that a chicken's education ends when a day old. The antics of a clutch of one-dav-old chicks gave unending diversion, liveh- in spite of their usual twenty- four hour starvation. Small chicken houses on skids used as a by-product, brought our best behaved and most aggressive insect gourmands to assist in the clean-up slaughter of garden pests in asparagus and strawberry beds and small fruit plantings when bloom 32 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE CELLATS OP PIHriACUE ONE HOUSK THAT STROLLED INLAND. FORTY POUND TURKEY 33 and fruitage were not in evidence. A mulch of weeds and straw outside the hennery walls allowed the use of a dirt ash-strewn dusting floor in winter. Alore than a dozen breeds, with separate yard for each, battled to convince us that there was money to be made from this branch of husbandry, but when the stock of hens num- bered much over one hundred and the care devolved upon hired help, we found little if any profit. In spite of incubators and brooders, sunny and shaded chicken runs, close study of the dietetic value of different poultry foods, including a goodh' batch of sunflower seeds grown in the hen yards, and seemingly the most devoted care, both infant and adult mortalit>- ran high, and roup competed with hen-hawks, polecats and an occasional Sir Reynard, to fill the wrong side of the ledger. The profit in the sale of breeding stock was more than canceled by possible loss in egg and broiler." Forty Pound Turkey. I recall with bucolic pride our forty pound prize bronze turkey gobbler. To be accurate, he tipped the scales at thirt3'-eight pounds eight ounces, but candor compels us to admit that he was "boughten, not riz." Our pride had a setback when we rcml of a sixty-pounder in the West. In self defense, \\"e had to trap the mink, weasel, rat, and sometimes a vagrant cat, who insisted upon jommg issues with an occasional polecat to poach in the chicken ^-ard. \Vell, the chicken raising hobby ser\"es the beneficent purpose of forcing pure countr}* air into half expanded city lungs, and gi^'es new zest to living, e\'en if financial results are sometimes disappointing. An^_ong all the screechers on our farm, including quacking ducks and hissing geese, our guinea fo'vl and a royal peacock, who strutted proudly up and dowMi the lawn, generally refusing to entertain guests by an exhibition of his spreading tail with its iriilescent coloring, out- screech.ed them all. The white fantails superciliously ignored the carrier pigeons that dwelt in the dovecote, nesting in the big barn cupola. Perched on ridges or strutting in tlie barn y;ird, the\" alniost fell backward under pride of carriage, and adrled to tlie domestic atmosphere of our farm buildings. Husking Bee. The floor of the old barn was too une\cn for dancing, but each fall we had a jolly huskine bee, and the finding of a red ear generallv prognosticated a reddened cheek. ■■■The way out for the amateur poultry keeper, whether a widow with children to sup- port or a clerk seelcing lost health, has been found. Let each municipaiity or. in lieu of a generous public, the liberal minded individual owner, establish poultry experiment stations in near-by suburbs, where up-to-date methods in sheltering, feeding, breeding, special care of poultry, buying of stock and feed, and marketing poultry and eggs in the most profitable manner, are taught. Plants of this character widely established would greatly shorten the distance between producer and consumer, and could supply incubator chicks and market the poultry. 34 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Our Honey Bee Industry. The boys who, as we shall see later, built "The Cot," had a strong liking for bees, snakes, turtles and all animal life. Under the tutelage of an apiarist who lived near, a swarm of bees was cap- tured from the branch of an apple tree and installed in a novel hive made bj' removing the lower sash in one of the attic windows, fitting a neatly-made box tightly in the space, and boring holes in the window frame for ingress and egress of the bees. On the room side of the box they inset a broad sheet of glass darkened by a screen. Utilizing the plan of a friend, a sliding microscope was arranged against the glass, so that on lifting the curtain the bees could be microscopically seen in their home life. No more pathetic insect life exists than that of the female bee, born a queen, but changed in a few days, through insufficient food, to a worker in a realm of abject servitude. She knows no rest, and after weeks of continuous toil there comes a morning, as she darts from the hive to her daily task, when the worn out wings fail, and she falls to the ground never to rise again. One of our queen bees by actual count in twenty-four hours laid 2,000 eggs toward her life quota of from one and one-half to two and one-half million. The busy bee, Napoleon's emblem, led us deep into the mysteries of one phase of interesting insect life, and twenty hives in one orchard kept our friends and us honeyed all the year. The window bee-hive, where there was no risk of being stung, was one of the farm sights, and interested all visitors, while the incentive given the children to study natural history formed method- ical habits of research, close observation and that greatest of all factors in success — concentration. Star Gazing. From bee-keeping and its kindred attractions, the\- were drawn to the study of astronomy, and the fi'.-^-inch lens telescope set up on the old farm-lookout was in constant use. Star gazing in the open was supplemented bj' indoor lessons. BIRDS 35 CHAPTER II. Our Birds — Fruit — Ixsects — Farm Help — Boy's Cabin — Pets — F(jRESTRv — Game Preserve— Hedges — Roads — Gutters — Ice — Play Side of Farming — Couxty Fair — Symptoms of Buildixg AIaxia. IT adds new zest to living to be up and about with the meadow lark, and is rare joy occasionally, when the days are longest, to beat the birds at their game of early rising, and hear from copse and tree-top dawn twitters, swelling into orisons of greeting to the King of Day. An early to bed regime made possible an occasional summer stroll at four a. m., that rare hour of nature's awakening so seldom appreciated by the great mass of humanity because unseen. Bird Annihilation Spells Famine. Though but the merest fraction of the nine hundred or more North American bird species nested and lived among us, numerically they were legion.* The quantities of cherries, berries, seeds, grubs, worms and insects attracted them to our orchards by thousands and they were welcomed with open arms as man's best friends. A leading scientist, an extremist, has said, "Obliterate the birds, and you blot man from this planet within nine years." The "death cham- ber" of the bird we seldom found though a rocky cleft or a hole in a tree, sometimes serving as an ossuary, at rare intervals gave up the secret. Isolation in the death hour seems the choice of all animal life. The birdling in a single day develops as far toward maturity as an infant in a year. This rapid grow'th requires a.T insect menu of wide scope and great quantity. For examnle, it is on record that a pair of house martins (swallows) fed their young over three hundred times in sixteen hours. We managed to accom- modate the growing birds, and still have so many left-overs that additional slaughter of the innocents by fire, poison and force of arms alone prevented serious damage to our crops. To walk through field and pasture with opera glass, camera, pad and pencil and ever so feebly try to fathom bird lore was keen delight. Bob White. From "Round Meadow," the only nomenclature of the past that clung to the old farm, came the liquid notes of the brown thrasher * Authorities claim that the climate of Connecticut not only allows a wider range in plant L^rowth than any other state— but that a greater variety of birds lives within its borders. 36 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Ml>7J'AM> I THAT SIKT^ m TKt ATPL^ ORCHARD "N O '^ HOW THE UNASSUMING ACRES CHANGED FRONT. BIRD TEMPERAMENTS 41 Farmer's Wasted Opportunity. As the birds are God's messengers, so should the farmer be the custodian of nature's secrets and above the smirch of saint seducing gold. No m.an has a grander opportunity to appreciate the infinity of the Creator than he who rises with the lark. Drudger) and grinding care, I grant you, are often his lot, but snow-bound winter days and long winter evenings awa\" from the lure of the town give hours for close converse with hook and microscope. The jugglery and jingle of dollars, especially in the marts of trade, in this money grubbing age, at times dwarf, deaden, and almost destroy our love of nature. The farther we get from civilization, the closer seems man's head to the groimd, and in potato patch or hay field he often appears unmindful of the uplift that conies through communion w"ith that same nature. "I laugh at the lore and pride of man. At sophist's school, and the learned clan ; For what are they all in their high conceit When man in the bush with God may meet?" In that morning stroll, one of the earliest greeters was the bobolink, rising from the meadow and fairly bubbling over with his melodious song of joy, a song that stayed with me through distracting days. More rarely, but at earlier and later hours, and in contradistinc- tion to the glorious warble of the bobolink, (the reed bird of the south, or Bob-o-Linkon) came nocturnal "Poor Will's" bid for sympathy, and along the same line, but at more normal hours, the plaintive note of the Phoebe bird and in the twilight hour that w-onder warble from one of the sweetest choristers of earth's oft invisible choir, the thrush, pouring forth its evening song. Bird Temperaments. ^Ve enjoyed studying bird temperaments, and tracing resem- blances to the human. In sp'te of the hackneyed statement that in an animal we find but one quality accentuated ; e. g. : faithfulness in the dog, ambition in the horse, selfishness in the hog, in birddom W'ere found varied qualities. For instance, the kingfisher showed some distinctive old bachelor traits, fairly reveling in solitude, rarely consorting in numbers, methodical in habit; generally frequent- ing the same hunting ground, fishing in the same stream, and perch- ing on the same watch tower tree times without number. The rasp- ing, strident voiced blue jay is the best example of the jav-human who egotistically bores both friend and adjacent stranger in car and theatre with meaningless chatter, he who loudly rehearses his unim- portant personal doings, gluttonously feeding on half-hearted excla- mations forced by courtesy from ennuied listeners. 42 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE SONtCr THt THITiGS THAT HAPPENED TO TY\X. uriASSUnrnG RCPt'- EACH PLANNED TO FIT THE SITE. BLIZZARD OF iSSS 43 1 he crow impressed one with his self-importance, strutting up and down our fields like a landed proprietor. Very sociable and interest- ing he proved, and when a young one was captured his antics were al- most human. He is a type of the exasperating bombastic and self-suf- ficient man, the impressionist, life with whom is "caw" and "caw" again. He listens with supercilious and distracted mien, only to endeavor to outdo and overshadow with the account of his own or his friend's doings, in his anxiety to be heard cutting short the finale of your tale. But for real bubbling-over cheerfulness, give me the chickadee. The snow might drift across the lane level with fence top, and trees and buildings be festooned therewith, yet the cheery "here I be" of this optimist brightened the most forlorn day. . A, ".'ir BLIZZARI.) CiF 18&S. Blizzard of 1888. Bird Callers. I recall that in the blizzard of 1888, \\\\en we had to tunnel a snowdrift to reach the outer world as well as to feed stock, the chickadee was our first caller, forced to tap at a second stor\' window- pane for his breakfast. Snow buntings, nuthatches, downy wood- peckers, and tree sparrows vigorously hunted for seeds and grubs in meadow and orchard and also patronized our suet lunch counter nailed to a near by apple tree. Winter seemed to make hopping sparrows and waddling starlings thoroughly dissatisfied with themselves and their surroimdings ; I fancy the gray skies grayed their lives, as gray skies affect some humans. 44 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE .FLINCiTtflTlD - UKPIOPOOJ, THE FARM HOUSK AND ITS NPiXT llnOK NIOIGHB(^R. KINGLETS OF THE EVERGREENS 45 The woodpecker showed the traits of a bustling business man. With untiring energy' he circled and re-circletl the trunks of our apple trees, leaving them moth-eaten and battered as he bored with almost mathematical precision mj'riad holes in his search for Insect life and sap. It is IMunchausenly said by some reckless tarradiddler that the most beautiful markings glorifying the bird's-eye maple are directly traceable to an injury to the tree made by this industrious bird, who, if the statement were correct, might be called an arboreal pearl manufacturer. The scientist solves the enigma with the state- ment that they are wood imprisoned buds. The shrill, imperious note of command of the flicker or golden woodpecker (next in size to the crow, and a leader among bird captains of industry) awakened early spring morning echoes. 7'he quarrelsome side of humanity divided honors among the birds. Pronounced examples were seen in the frowsy-headed, scolding wren, the noisy, pugnacious, bloodthirsty English sparrow and the fighting shrike or butclier bird who brained alike both spar- rows and field-voles. Kinglets of the evergreens were real kings in their province, near neighbors to the redstart, another of our sweetest warblers. The fitful, darting, uneven, swirling flight of the barn swallows graphically pictures the forceful yet purposeless man who takes long and roundabout journeys to go little distances in the realm of finance and barter, unable to see the shorter cuts. The lilliputian, hawk-like, screaming, bow-winged chimney swifts were continually in flight, their only alighting spot seeming to be the chimney side. At times their progeny disturbed our slum- bers with ghostly flutterings on the hearth at midnight's witching hour. In the highest peak of the granary roof nested tiiat awkward booby of the bird race, the barn owl, whose strangely weird screech- ing of "to whit! to whoo!" so different from all other bird language, broke the stillness of the summer nights, preceded often at dusk by the sharp eerie shriek of the night hawk, which came out of the ether like the cry of a lost soul as he circled aimlessly o\erhead.* Bats. Yes, there were plenty in one of our outbuildings; harmless creatures, in spite of their swift and startling comings and goings and occasionally hair-raising poachings in the tabu realms of porch and bedroom, in their search for mosquitoes and moths. Pirating Birds. Bird thievery was best exemplified in the nest-stealing cuckoo, less parasitical, however, than his European cousin, and the love of companionship in the polygamous cowbird who perched upon and fed near the cattle, and was another nest-appropriating vagrant. The night hawk is in the front rank of the list of crepuscular goatsuckers. 46 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 'THU16S R£D TOWEKa THAT HAPrETJED TO THE TAUM PIFTKKN SHEAVKS FROM THE GRAIN PIELLUS. BATTLE ROYAL IN THE ORCHARD 47 The cuckoo synonymed perfectly among his fellows of the avian tribe that type of man who, no matter how many or how close his relatives, seems always a stranger among them, sharing not an attribute of his forbears, furnishing to some additional proof of the theory of reincarnation. The Songless Bird. Interesting and fascinating because of its delicate tiny form and swift motion was the songless bird, the rub^-gorget-throated hummer, whose spitfire squeak oft betrayed his presence. He quaffed deep draughts of the honey hidden in the floret's deepest nectary, fit for a kmg, his favorite browsing field the Japanese Halliana honej-suckle that covered our side porch with its profuse continuous blooms and green-embowered the entrance to the dining room used by the stable help. The red-ej'ed vireo and the siskin haunted the orchard. The red-headed sapsucker, who unwittingly shares his sap banquet with bee and humming bird, and the hermit thrush, were among our latest bird callers ere they took up their journey south- ward. As in mankind big crowds often mean jolly companionship, so enormous flocks of birds bubble over with the joy of living as they seek the air lanes through which they migrate at high altitudes for thousands of miles twice a year, instinct directing their course with unerring precision. I soon learned that the singing birds of May and June, the real chorister months in birddom, were absolutely silent during the moulting season of July and August, though the robin and some others were again in voice ere wintry blasts drove them either into the deep woods or farther south. Birds, to whom is given the freedom of the skies, have but faint kinship with the beasts, apparently belong- ing to other realms, and man's efforts to fathom bird lore have igno- miniously failed — indeed, seemingly few try to understand the fasci- nating chorister pages in nature's book. Battle Royal in the Orchard. Believing firmlv in a generous fruit diet as a bulwark against disease, our plantings, in addition to the back log of apples and pears, were large and varied. The old saw: "Two apples a day keep the doctor away" was in our unwritten decalog. ]\Iany were the discussions over the different fruits; whether one could tell by taste the red Cuthbert from the golden queen or the Brinkles orange raspberry; the best eating and keeping pears and apples, or pick out a seckle and a Bartlett pear tree when the orchard was leafless. Dwarf fruit trees, the playthings of the orchard, were soon uprooted and given to owners of town yards while we used sturdier, more prolific, and profitable plantings. -48 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE HAYING. SEEDLING POUND APPLE 49 Apples. Success? That depends upon the point of view. At any rate, we had the keen joy of living close to nature, and were all in perfect health. The profit in dollars varied. One year I recollect we had over four hundred barrels of apples, but that year everyone had apples in profusion. There was only sufScient cash return to pay the commission merchant's charges, the freight, cost of barrels, and a few cents for the pickers. Worthless fruit abounded, as in most old farm orchards, but grafting and regrafting, coeval with our conquest of the San Jose scale, gave far better results. Some of the thriftiest wild apple seedlings and occasionally the least desirable of nursery-grown trees were grafted with seek-no- furthers, northern sp5's, Baldwins and Roxbury russets, Rhode Island greenings, wine sap, king, and snow apples, and Newtown pippins. False Economy in Tree Planting. The trees had been planted for from twenty-five to fifty years and were a monument to the false economy of the farmer who, having broad acres, yet crowds his apple trees to twenty-five foot spaces, and in less than a score of years has a mass of interlocked branches, conse- quently undersized and mildewed fruit. With this lesson before us, all new settings were spaced from fifty to sixt\r feet, and trees planted opposite only in every other row, giving still more room for growth. Dynamiting the Soil. Before planting the orchards, every twenty-five feet and three feet underground were set dynamite cartridges. Electrically exploded as one battery, they thoroughly disintegrated the soil and freed plant food enslaved for centuries. In winter the trees were girdled with newspapers to balk the girdling rabbit. Many a farmer is ignorant of the fact vouched for by some authorities that the cedar is the enemy of the apple tree, and that the crisp, tiny, brown, fragile, hollow cedar apple can propagate an apple blight ; therefore he who hedges in his fruit trees by wind screens of protecting cedars harbors that which may blight and curtail his apple crop. We scraped the rough, loose, scaly bark from the trunks of fruit trees, being careful not to dig into the quick, and gave them thorough scrubbings with greasy water, including dog washing suds. This disheartened and generally annihilated the most voracious bug, and helped to grow a fine, smooth, healthy bark. Seedling Pound Apple. New apple trees were set out for variety. The former owner's plantings had been russets, Baldwins, one sweet apple, half a 50 HOJV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE SHACKS THAI eom:. im;. /IPPRQ/ic-H,,.!.'. RKAKKJCKmU, wren aoptmAiiwiui WAS i-oima FROM SHACK TO MANSION. PEAR TREE OF 1632 51 dozen northern spys and three crab apple-. In tlie front yard, close to the house, was a seedling apple tree at least twenty-hve years old that deserves an epitaph, especially as by encroaching on its roots in enlarg- ing the farm house we unintentionally killed it. For several seasons it bore bountifully apples weighing a pound or more each. They had bright reddish skins streaked with green, were deliciously tart, and fine keepers. The rare combination keenly interested and completely phased every pomologist to whom I submitted specimens, including my old friend Dr. Hexamer who credited me with owning the apple of the future, and I had just completed arrangements for its propagation in a large way when it died. A second Concord grape success was lost to the world when that nameless seedling pound apple tree died unscioned, and failure number ten, a most humiliating one, went into the record book. Pear Tree of 1632. We sent a special agent to the Governor Thomas Prence homestead at Eastham, on Cape Cod (the Thomas Prence who came over in the good ship Fortune, and was later one of the early Gov- ernors of Plymouth Colony) and obtained scions of that oldest pear tree in the United States, as on three former occasions. Affidavits from "that oldest inhabitant" assured us that they were taken from the tree brought from England in or about 1632. They grew and thrived, and though the fruit was small and gnarly, the charm of history and romance surrounded it, for undoubtedly from the same stock ate John Alden and Priscilla Mullens, that doughty war- rior, Myles Standish, and manj' others of the little company who paid that first memorable visit to New England, December 22, 1620. We christened this pear the Alayflower, as eating it carried us back to the days of cone-shaped hats, wide collars and knickerbockers ; to the time when little things were mighty things, in sharp contrast with these latter days when mighty things are to us little things. Newly awakened forces advance, vanguarded by electricity and radium, unknown, sleeping giants then, but today though barely awakened more than equal to the enormous burdens that man in the arrogance of his divine right to rule matter is heaping upon them. The Site Makes or Ruins. The same farmer who plants his apple trees close together often opens both house and barn gates across the highway and builds his home unpleasantly near it, barns and outbuildings sometimes really edging the dusty road, all false economies, forgetting that if the house is set well back and on rising ground, if only in a rough pasture lot, his property is lifted beyond ordinary farm competition, and can be made extremely attractive and more valuable at small expense. I have in mind two ordinary houses that I moved back from the highway a couple of hundred feet into the centre of a rugged hillside at a cost 52 HOPF TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THJ. BUILDER FOREMAN ANiMATKS AND 1 XANIM ATICS CORDON JND FJN-GROIJ'N TREES 53 of $300 each, and therebj' increased the value of land and buildings one hundred per cent. Even the widening of a road in front of a prop- erty enhances its value and desirability. As simple a thing as setting back a wall two feet I found not o:ilv broadened the sidewalk but added materially to the appearance and value of a house. The vital and expensive error of building a house in the wrong location is frequently made. A house built on low land is generally sheltered, often hot, and always damp. Fruit Crop. The fruit crop on the old farm began and ended with apples, save for a couple of crooked pear trees which yielded a half crop of discolored, nubbined, gnarly fruit; half a dozen fine peach trees — never have eaten as good peaches since — and a small patch of rasp- berries. Peaches. The peach crop from the new plantings averaged for several years about fifteen hundred baskets of highly colored luscious fruit. A long, tight board fence facing south inveigled us to distort and mutilate with knife and pruning-saw peach, nectarine, and pear tree along espalier lines, and cordon and fan-grown trees fastened against this fence matured their fruit ahead of time, boosted into ripening by old 3x6 hot-bed sash, braced lengthwise aslant the fence top. The short-lived peach trees were set between the long-lived pears, which outlive their planters for generations unless neglected or overtaken by disease; indeed, even the stalwart apple tree crumbles to dust years before this seemingly weaker sister, the pear, ceases to yield. Our pear gamut e.xtended from Clapp's Favorite, that rotted at the heart if left on the tree, to the late ripening Kieffer, and between times the Buerres, including the luscious Bosc, also the winter Nelis, sell at a high price. In apples ^ve prolonged the season from Summer Red Astrachans to wine saps and Winter Spitzenbergs. Plums. Plum trees were planted in the poultry yard to gain the aid of the industrious hen in the struggle with that mightiest of monopolistic trusts, the insect world. We fought at five a. m. or earlier the curculio, nicknamed the little Turk, because in depositing her eggs she stamps her mark of ownership, a Turkish crescent, on every plum within reach. A sheet was spread each side the trunks, and often before sun-up, while the night chill is still in the air so that she could neither cling to the tree nor fly away, we tapped with mallet on a screw or spike driven into the tree trunk, and, lo, Mrs. Curculio was soon food for an extraordinarily hungry hen or the fire. Infec- tive monilia and shot-hole fungi were fought valiantly with poison- charged squirt guns. Quinces thrived when we checked the bombard- ment of quince curculio, borer, and bag-worm. 54 HOIV rO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE soKP SHOTS OF utz on rm f arm. Me flTCBORETUMB SWOIJD YEKR SITS- ^BUEHA VISTA OME SeewoM/OUR TW0«t6E. rXQRAL BORDER ,^ FARM VIEWS SMALL FRUITS 55 The farmer finds no exception to that law confronting mankind, the survival of the fittest, briers vs. flowers, tares vs. grain, insects and fungi vs. vegetables and fruit. Much to our surprise we found that the long jellow papaw and plum-like astringent persimmon thrived. Cherries. Cherry Lane which led to the pastures was lined each side with black eagles, black Tartarians, Governor Woods and yellow Spanish. Wild cherry trees were left in the hedge-rows (unless they shaded other planting) as a spread net to segregate the tent cater- pillars for our kerosene torches of destruction. We ashed for yellows, tried successfully the alliteration "potash paints the peach," cut the blighted branches of the pear trees and sprayed Bordeaux mixture and other solutions from a horse-barrel-cart and pump to the very topmost twigs of our fruit trees to destroy fruit and leaf blight.* Grapes. Grape settings numbered hundreds, possibly thousands, of varied kinds, and judicious winter pruning before the sap started gave a prolific yield of Niagaras and Concords which with us rarely mildewed, although the former under conditions is a mildewer, but the Rogers seedlings in our climate were far from immune. Roses no longer satisfied the rose bug. The grapevine was to his special lik- ing, and his inroads, as well as that of black rot, the acti\'e grape-leaf- hopper and the spotted pelidnot kept us destructively busy among the vines. Paper bags protected, and thinning grapes in cluster and bunch vastly improved the fruit. Rough, grape-vine-embowered and crude-angled cedar, walnut, and chestnut pergolas lasted longer than those planed and painted, curved and jig-sawed, arched arbors made and set by the carpenter, and were far more appropriate and picturesque. The first cost was less and the repair bill nil. They made fine dog-trots, while the grassy space between centred with a bird font answered for a crow-walk and bird rendezvous. Small Fruits. After investigation, the Wachusett was decided upon as the semi- thornless blackberry best suited to our needs. Some gooseberries were large as damson plums; the red, white, and black currants grew fairly well in the shade, and made rare preserves, but the wild bar- berry, when in flower or fruit a most ornamental shrub, gave the best jam. There were dewberries, or running blackberries, whortle- berries and strawberries of varying degrees of sweetness, but few of the latter as good flavor as the wild strawberry, also a wealth of '■•Copper sulphate, six pounds, lime, four pounds, to thirtj' five or forty gallons of water was tile formula. 56 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Hll.1^ TOP ROBIX'S NEST ON THE MO^YING KNIVES. DEFEAT BY THE INSECT TRUST 57 elderberries, red, yellow and black raspberries, or black caps, and bay- berries, from which we make the Christmas "ba^'berrie dyppe." Our only bog was planted to cranberries from stock sent us from Cape Cod. Tie and Pole Forestry. We found the care and propagation of trees as outlined by the United States Government interesting, and the farm library was added to by forestry papers and booklets as well as Governmental maps showing the topography and boundaries of our State and country. As a business project, in \'iew of the dearth and high price of the wood of black walnut and cherry, we planted hundreds of small trees of each in the pasture land, roughly railing them from cattle. Someone, sometime, should reap bountifully where we sowed. An acquaintance owning an extensive estate edgmg one of our railroad lines has set out twenty thousand or more locusts and chestnuts close to the track, a pole and tie proposition, but unless disease in the chestnut is conquered, that end of the project is wrecked, though the locust must in time yield good returns, for who or what could injure a locust? Ornamental trees on the farm were few compared with the five hundred and more species indigenous to this country and included chestnut, hickory, sassafras, tulip, swamp oak, maple, aromatic black birch and sycamore. In shrubs there were half a dozen lilacs and a couple of spireas, one of which had a magnificent golden leaf in early spring, but lost its coloring later in the season, as do the ordinary copper beeches. Defeat by the Insect Trust. In the six acre blackberry patch was lost a mighty battle. We controlled at first the spring and fall orange rust that in a year or two made heavy inroads on this crop, while the peach and quince borers found death at the end of a wire which, spite of soiled clothing and bruised knees, was pressed into his hiding places, usually found where the trunk edged the ground or an inch or two below the surface. By like method was searched out and destroyed the apple borer in his bark-hidden lair. The asparagus beetle, the raspberry borer, and cane girdler, the potato bug — in fact, all the various enemies of the farmer that flew, crawled, or bored — we fought tooth and nail with Paris green, helle- bore, Bordeaux mixture, and other insect and fungi destroyers. Purification by Fire. Purification by fire saved foliage, bloom, fruit, and plant, whether it was currant worm, rose bug, or infected wood of pear or peach or vine of raspberry, blackberry, and grape that fed the holocaust and when our twenty years of apprenticeship at farming ended 58 HOJV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE we knew in a fairly satisfactory if amateurish way fruit, milk, trees, flowers, farm stock and utensils, in fact, almost everything per- taining to farming, except how to manage that unknown and exasper- ating quantity, farm help. Farm Help. Why farm help or the keeping of it proves a bugbear is a question that will not down even with the up-from-the-cradle-farmer and the amateur is generally nonplussed. Birthright Sold for Pottage of the Fields. The death-dealing triumvirate of drouth, disease and insect life can be circumvented and controlled if not entirely vanquished, but the farm help problem is rarely satisfactorily solved. If you let the farm on shares to avoid the cares of husbandry, you'll pocket your pride and be merely a tenant on your own domain, possibly dictatorially told which fields you may enter and those in which you must not trespass ; have the privilege of paying for new miichinery . and helplessly seeing it broken up, and when the three years' lease has expired, seven to ten chances your soil has been impoverished, your cattle made non-producing, and tools and buildings left in poor condition. No! Be a prince, living in your own castle on your own estate if it's only a bungalow and two acres, rather than a vassal on a thousand acres. But if you own a large farm, pasture most of it, and in part with horse boarders as long as horse boarders exist. Let the trees grow, trimming when necessary, keeping down grass, weeds and underbrush with a flock of sheep or Angora goats. Farm lightly ; take annoyances philosophically, and enjoy Arcadia to the utmost. A farm run in this way without expensive buildings to keep up, with large road frontage, and near a growing town, rapidly increases in value, and the carrying charges are simply nominal and more than offset by your summer rent. Marauder Versus Marauder. As in California especially they are using insect to fight insect and stamping out disease by letting loose some bitter enemy to feed upon it, so in time the microbiologist will discover the insect or fungus that will overcome the chestnut disease, as well as the hickory blight which is slowly sapping the life of another of our prolific nut trees and destroy the gypsy moth, elm beetle and other enemies to vegetation that swarm in mighty hosts in field, orchard and forest. Scattered over the farm were nut trees by the hundred, monarched notably by a big five-trunked chestnut that we christened "The Emperor," after which was named the chestnut lot. There were hickories, pig nuts and shellbarks, butternuts, pungent black walnuts, and copses of hazel or filberts. To this list was added -the little chinquepin, also the large Japanese chestnut that, low- CATCH-ALL SHED 59 firowing and thick headed, makes an effective screen, and has at present no fungus enemy. The alder-leafed trailing chestnut was also successfully grown. Hardy English Walnut. A farmer sold us half a dozen walnut trees that he had raised from the nut of a hardy English walnut, and these gave after fifteen years' slow growth that rare product in our climate, a thin-shelled \\-alnut of large size. Rabbit Hutches and Squirrel Cages. In a corner of the barnyard were the rabbit hutches against the fence barrier, with underground corridors boxed in wood, covered with galvanized wire netting to prevent their digging out. Near the wire squirrel-house containing half a dozen tame flying squirrels, and built large enough to give them ample freedom, was a small pool made by the overflow of a cattle watering trough, which, by the way, was a slightly damaged solid porcelain bathtub with square ends, priced at $500 but bought for $20. It weighed eight hundred pounds, and made an ideal year round trough for the cattle, its white interior showing the slightest befoulment and easily hosed. A fir tank fastened together with iron rods cost nearly as much, soon began to leak under the July sun and in a few years completely rotted, and a brick cement lined affair never looked as spotless as our bathtub trough. A portion of this little pool in the barnyard, protected from cattle intrusion by a wire fence, was generally alive with turtles, the largest of which were tethered. They were taken from the duck ponds, from the big snapper, with his horny, shingled hide, guilty of many a duckling or gosling murder, to the daintily painted little black and yellow spotted lady-bird-crawler no larger than a half dollar. I recall one old moss-back snapper on whose shell was scratched the date 1849, proof by inference not only of turtle longevity but that someone hunted turtles on or near our farm sixty or more years ago. Catch-Ail Shed. We built what was labeled a catch-all shed, with a driveway through its centre to accommodate cumbersome implements. In this way ploughs, harrows, ponderous scrapers, etc., could be tumbled off the stone boat or sled and dragged out of sight. Here were stored se\eral more or less useless experiments; for example, the iron stump grubber for uprooting grass tufts that dotted the lowlands, and that proved a failure, even when drawn by a double yoke of cattle, who were unable to budge the tiny rootlets, so that final resort was had to Patrick and a spade. It wasn't a total loss as it made a fine subsoil upheaver. HOW rO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE COT YES - IT WILL BE A HO'J^E -mmmmmM TOO STIALL "ADDmCi TO THEIR DOHICILB POLlSHinCi '1. GHOUriDS SEBFOOM AMD DmiHCi Boon THI-: LUSTY YOUNG HOMESTAKKKS. TODDLERS' GARDEN 61 An emergency corner was devoted to chains, rope ends, straps, old harness, ox yokes, etc., while duplicate tools and odds and ends decorated wall and collar beams. On the latter were stored extra shafts — a grand-dad cur\e(I back and dashboard, carpet-lined sleigh, and other hundred and ones. Circumventing the Sagging Gate. The problem of tlie sagging gate fastening was solved with a Vermont farmer's device. To a heavy three-inch jagged edge pronged staple with five-inch opening made of three-quarter inch iron (two and a half inches above its centre round and two and a half inches below the centre square) was sprung a piece of half-inch flat iron about five inches long witli square aperture. The round portion of the iron staple being of smaller diameter than the square, the Hat piece turned easily, but when slipped down on the square fitted tightly and held the fiat fi\'e-inch fender against the gate, securely fastening it. The Boy's Cabin. The shack built by the younger boy was on the same ridge and had the same extensive outlook as the farm house. The boy builder named it "The Cot," in honor of his grandsire's roof-tree at Fresh Water Cove in Gloucester, Massachusetts, built before that "war that tried men's souls." Two berths, a kitchen, a rear porch, a front veranda, and a doorway just low enough to hit a grown-up's head, were what the cot inventoried. The lusty young homestaker who built it, from sup- porting posts to Boston-shingled-ridge, even if he lives man's allotted years, will never again experience such joy as he had in that first house warming, nor feel greater pride than when he surveyed his first wash. Years after, a heedless farm hand let a brush fire get beyond control, and The Cot, as well as the barns which once sheltered our prize Dutch belted Taurus and the rest of his kind, who stood in commendable alphabetical order from Arabella to Zoe, went up m smoke, a calamitv that covered an entire page m our farm record book. It was the onlv brush fire ever started in my absence and insurance had lapsed the week before. Toddlers' Garden. The Toddlers' Garden meant absolute safety, entertainment, and health to the two to four year old toddlers. It was forty feet square, fenced and gated with close meshed wire, and screened with a three foot high privet hedge ; in one corner a roof and four posts, in the centre a sand pile, a bit of greensward, and a few sturdy, flowering plants. Close to the house and in plain view of a dozen or more windows, it gave the tots the freedom craved and the contact with Mother Earth needed, and completely solved one of the most aggra- vating problems in the bringing up of the child. 62 HOIF TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Wayside. A brush tire razed "Wa\side," that quaint little shack with attic-stored heirlooms, from the great four-poster, and its convenient companion, the trundle-bed, to the Washington table. It also served once as the dog on which we tried the patent wooden-board-lath, advertised to take the place of the usual mason's lath. One of its weak points was that unless the knots were shellacked they showed through the plaster and stained the walls much more readily than the ordinary lath. It also had less clinching strength. The south veranda was covered in four months by that wonderful climber, the Kudzu vine, which lengthened forty feet the first season, and on its north side, where the winter sun could not burn it, the English ivy lived through the coldest winters. Pinned down with pegs this same ivy greened deeply shadowed banks and tree-dripped spaces. Our Mushroom Venture. The basement half-above-ground-cellar of Wayside was double- doored and double-windowed, and shelved and binned for storage of vegetables. Here too were kept the tub-plants, among them the beautiful, purple-blooming, tropical-leaved hydrangeas that lined the drive in summer, the bay trees that cornered the house, the brilliant scarlet Hibiscus cooperii, and an oleander twelve feet high, a legacy from one of our forbears. A half dozen fig trees also found a hiber- nating home in that elastic vegetable cellar, and one corner was partitioned off for the growing of mushrooms in a modest wav which required the use of a small heater. The inevitable and essential clutter corner held its usual modicum of unsightly but useful articles. '1 1 10 r..\CK Tj.\ne. A CIDERLESS FARM 63- In Wayside was the office, where I conferred with farm help and kept dairy and expense books. The veranda afterward added proved a wise expenditure and was well patronized. Housing Farm Help. The lounging and sleeping quarters of the help were also in Wayside, and here they had their meals when the force was large, a man cook being employed. An ante-room was turned into a semi-sitting room. In it were a fireplace, lounge and easy chairs, a large table, well covered with agricultural and other papers, and hanging shelves filled with a small but instructive farm library. Farm Scrap Book. There were scrap-books regularly indexed, each devoted to a dif- ferent topic — animals, crops, utensils, farm economies, and the like, — - for which some of the help were interested in collecting items. On the walls hung pictures of animals, prize vegetables, etc. Above this sitting-room were bedrooms, reached both from with- out and within. A Ciderless Farm. An orgy caused by the use of hard cider decided me to "mother" the cider into vinegar, sell the cider-press, and thereafter feed the surplus apples to the pigs or give them away with the understanding that they were not to be used for cider. Vinegar making, before the German twenty-four hour process was discovered, we found a long story. After the half filled barrels were given a bit of "mother" (which it took two years to mature) it was another year before vine- gar spelled cash. Wayside annex contained a thoroughly warmed tool shop fitted with carpenter's bench, anvil, forge, lathe, etc., and sometimes after an absence of months borrowed tools came back because they were ndelibly marked "Hillcrest Farm" on metal and wood. Oil kept them from rusting when not in use. The Tree House. Close by Wayside grew the tall chestnut in whose spreading top for a dozen years, straddling its highest crotch and defying the wildest storms, clung the tree house of the same youngster who planned and built The Cot. The Back Lane. Yes, one edged our farm. It had an individuality of its own. For years the neighbors had called it "Break Neck," "Sheep," or "Hog Hill," the usual names for a back country hill. Nar- rower than the highwav, the tree tops sometimes came together and skill was needed by the passer-by to a\'oid cat-briers and blackberry vines that hedged it. Here the real freedom of 64 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE OKE =' HniCEEST T-fiRMS BOUKDiSKTES FAL-LS THAT REALLY' FALI, AHB BOIL AMD .SUTJCE AS THEV LERP OtrWARD TOVIABD TKE> SEA - FIVK ^'ILO\V1'OJNTS UN THU FAKJI. GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES 65 country life had fullest sway. In early spring its borders were yellowed by the spice bush, and in the fall the bloom of the yellow witch hazel brightened and the stag-horned sumach reddened each rocky weed-grown hillock. Occasionally some city friend of pro- nounced sylvan tastes camped out in one of the three or four shacks that bespoke man's effort to people the wilderness of thorn, thicket, and wild frost grape that in wanton growth crowded the narrow way. Another world was the back lane and a stroll through it part of our Sunday program both summer and winter. God's First Temples. On a rising knoll centreing our biggest hillside grew a double score of majestic swaying pmes instancing again and again that "the groves were God's first temples." OUR ICE FIELD OUT OF COMMISSION. Our Woodland Paradise. It's but two miles 'cross country to the wood lot, for what farm is vi'orthy the name without such a lot? Its approach is through a rutty, scratch-gra\'el, rocky, brier-grown wood or ox-road, a right of way across a farmer's cow-yard and someone's pasture. But the wood lot stands for a blazing fire of birch, chestnut, hickory and maple, while its fauna was a continual surprise. It was a woodland paradise for partridges, woodcocks, gray squirrels, and rabbits galore. Its glades never echoed to a rifle shot, nor was the steel trap and wire or horse hair snare of the farmer boy ever allowed within its forty acres surrounded by a poacher-proof, ten foot high, gal- vanized wire fence, of close weave at the bottom and arched outward at the top. 66 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE DETAILS OF HUSBANDRY. FARM BARRIERS 67 Deer and Trout. The workmen who built the fence enclosed, quite by accident, a pair of beautiful deer. Safe from the hunter, they enjoyed the freedom of the woodland, and were one of the show sights of the farm. Its trout stream in season always insured a string of non- liver-fed fish. A walk 'cross country to our wood lot was a favorite jaunt. Farm Barriers. Neither stone wall nor wooden fence circumscribed house yard or lawn ; when necessary, barriers were formed by hedges, using the California privet as our standby, though there were others also through the length and breadth of the two hundred and fifty acres, among them a glossy-leaved laurel-willow, whose rampant growth was made com- pact by severe pruning, also spruces and hemlocks, whose branches, thus compelled to sweep groundward in graceful curves, formed a close mass of green foliage all the year. A row of purple beeches kept well within bounds and rounded into shape was as beautiful as rare, but like the oak they are dead-leaf trees. The thorn-branched honey locust in one field and the osage orange in another, pruned as hedges, prevented our sheep from straying, and a woven wire fence hidden in the foliage kept out marauding dogs. We used both hemlock and spruce, in preference to Arbor Vitse. In a corner of the garden was a sweet brier hedge which perfumed the air for fully one hundred feet, also a glorious Rosa rugosa barrier, and near the latter a clump of fine-fibred Japanese privet pruned into examples of topiary art. THE SUMMER STREAM — AUSABLE CHASM, JR. 68 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE WINTER TORRENT. paIjTjEn grandeur. NO GULLIED, WEED-FILLED ROADS 69 All hedges were planted in double or triple rows to make com- pact growth and allow of artistic pruning. Many shrubs were readih' propagated by thrusting the prunings into the ground in the shade of the shrub itself, and transplanting in the open the following season. Several beautiful effects in privet hedge we obtained by the use of the ogee curve on a down grade corner, in this case planting the tri-color. A very docile hedge is the privet, America's general substitute for the English yew. It was forced to assume many more or less attractive, and, in some cases, grotesque shapes in an effort to get out of a rut, a characteristic which often led to unnecessary and possibly unwise but interesting expenditureL=. The slopmg top of one hedge was pruned to spell Hillcrest." Privet edged one side of a set of entrance steps and was trimmed to match each step outline, it also solved an oft-met horticultural prob- lem by its thrifty growth under shade. Another credit for privet was gained during the past winter by the delicately-fibred Japanese variety that stood with impunity an occasional bath of salt spray. Barbarity of the Wire Barb. In early farming days we ignorantly used cruel barbed wire fences, but a wounded colt convinced us there was a better way, and thereafter squared and knotted galvanized wire barriers were substituted ; these were graduated upward from a four-inch to a ten- inch mesh and scantling nailed atop the posts, making the fence plainly visible to the galloping colts. When using trees as posts for fencing the wire was stapled to wooden blocks nailed to the trunk. As it gre\'\', the wood moved outward, and trees were uninjured. Climber and trader, as e.xampled in woodbine, honeysuckle, ram- bler rose, and the wistaria, one of our earliest and latest bloomers, beaut.fied the ugliest wire fences. The more delicate climbers of sparse foliage when trained on sun-exposed wires sometimes shriveled and died. Roads and gutters were important factors in our effort toward Arcadian living, and to them were given much time and thought. Weeds growing in cobble-stone gutters along the highway- were a problem, but a dose of kerosene oil from a watering-pot eliminated the tedious work of pulling. One application was generallv as effi- cacious as the kill-weed liquors. Splitting Raindrops. Stone gutters on farm roads were dispensed with by dumping and spreading on the centre of all steep inclin.es trap rock, mixed chip and pigeon-egg sizes. In this way the falling raindrops scattered, ♦By close to the ground pruning we successfully transplanted a fifty-year-old privet hedge some thirty-five years ago and it is today a compact thrifty wall of verdure over eighty years old. 70 HOPF TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE HIUCREST TAim GuriPSES i svomcmsr \ SWIRLING RAPIIitf OF OUR RIVER FRONT A FOREST CATHEDRAL 71 so that even in a fairly lieav}' shower we had no washed roadways, for the rain trickled between the small stones, leaving roads and gutters practically uninjured. Our River. The river that bordered the farm and the brook that centred it both had attractions. Damming, controlled by a suitable spill- way, made possible both fishing and canoeing on a small scale, the pond obtained being about six hundred feet long and one hundred and fifty feet wide. From it we filled the ice house, built to include a storage room with sawdust-packed walls for keeping fruits, vege- tables and sides of meat. As I recollect, the cost of stocking it was about $3.00 per ton, convenience being its largest asset. Shrubbery and vines screened it from the sun. Where the river dashed through a deep ravine, ^v^e hung a gallery from the cliffside, supported by iron pipes sealed with melted sulphur poured into holes which our man-of-all-work drilled in the rock face of the cliff, as shown in the summer and winter photographs. This gallery was floored with two-inch fir planks laid with half-inch spaces to retard too ready decay. Suspension Bridge. The rapid stream was spanned with a suspension bridge, the supporting side chains of which were inset in the ledges, and for a quarter of a mile along the rugged shore a footpath skirted the foaming rapids. On the east side a high rocky cliff towered almost perpendicularly for one hundred feet, its face broken by pro- jecting crags and huge boulders, while at the foot grew tall evergreens. A Forest Cathedral. This picturesque path led into an amphitheatre or forest cathedral of lofty hemlocks. A friend built a concrete ford edged with cement stepping stones across this same river which for heavy trucking was preferable, less expensive and more durable than a bridge. Not far from our Ausable Jr. was the farm brook which gave an eagerly improved opportunity for a trio of small duck ponds at descending levels, where one of the boys rigged up a miniature water- wheel. In one pond rose a wee bit of an island on which was a duck house. These shallows provided safe recreation for the young folks the year around. The gold fish with which we attempted to stock it were foully murdered in a single night. The criminals? They may have been that 1849 snapping turtle, our water fowl, or piratical members of the finny tribe — at all events, gold fish were never again placed in pools fed by unweired running streams or left without care. 72 HOW' TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE BTTS OF THE TWO-MILE FLORAL BORDER ALFALFA ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE 73 The Tornado. In our twenty years of farming I recall two terrific tornadoes which uprooted and even snapped asunder many mighty monarchs of the forest. It took months of hard labor to clear woodland and hillside pastures after a five-minute gust of one of these devastating storms. It is singular that among thousands of uprooted trees I have seen in this and other storms, not one struck a house, though often they fall when close to a dwelling. The Play Side of Farming. But it was by no means all work in Farmarcadia, as shown in snap-shots taken by the boj's, which include toboggan slide, pond, snow-houses and snow men, play-houses, sports, and pets of all kinds. In the meanwhile the arboretum grew apace, from a few struggling shrubs to a two-mile flowered border. In this the old farm begins to lose its identity, slowly merging into The Hillcrest Manor Park of today, an evolution that required over half a score of years for its accomplishment. Farmers' Grange. In closing the chapter in my life wherein I really farmed, I would fain pay my respects to the Farmers' Grange. Deeply inter- esting were these dueling grounds where green striplings, with the courage born of inexperience and ignorance, but often with cabal- headed persistency, threw down the gauntlet to bronzed warriors of hay and potato fields. It must be admitted that in these bouts those to the manor born were generally victors, though at times some new fangled agricultural tool, a prolific seed corn or luscious melon, and an improved method of cultivation brought to the atten- tion of the Grange by some amateur spendthrift-enthusiast finally won out. Alfalfa Road to Independence. I recollect one chap who advocated alfalfa growing, and had all the farmers by the ears with his wonderful tales of the fine crops he grew for cow, horse and poultry fodder. He explained that the suc- cessful growing of alfalfa consists in keeping weeds out of the soil by repeated cultivation prior to seed-sowing, which, in our climate, should be about August 15, and in supplying plenty of lime. Experience taught that an interesting and important item is the inoculation of the soil at the rate of three bushels to the acre with soil which has already grown alfalfa. It must be sandy or gravelly loam, with no rocks nor clayey sub-soil, a difficult condition to find in Hillcrest Manor. Planted thus the roots delve sometimes to a depth of twenty feet or more, and the field will last a lifetime, yielding, under favor- ing conditions, three or four crops each year. 74 HOJV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE This was one of the many experiments of the amateur which made the men of the soil at times give even a city greenhorn his due. In these winter evening meetings, a simple discussion often developed into a battle royal over the method of running a silo; to weight or not to weight, whether it was wise to feed horses on ensilage or injurious to man to feed pigs on brewery grains, what were the best paying crops, also irrigation and crop succession, what kind of green soiling was the best and the correct proportions of lime, muck, and nitrates to make a sand dune rival in fertility the drained river bottom lands. To enter the realm of insect fighting, including the elm beetle and gypsy moth, as well as diseases that are killing the apple, peach, pear, chestnut and walnut trees, the proper scraping and tarring of trees, etc., was to run the risk of prolonging the discussion until morning milking time.* The County Fair. The County Fair was the climax of enjoyment, prepared for and looked forward to for months. The farmer's calendar in many, to him, important matters dates either forward or backward from the County Fair. In it the farmer's family also have some slight recreation, the wives and daughters, who feel the heavy burden of house chores and farm housekeeping, the monotonous grinding routine ■of which brings many to the verge of insanity — indeed, statistics are said to prove that the inmates of insane asylums include a large percentage from the farm. A brain saver and a brain builder is the change of thought and ambition to excel that come so largely through the County Fair. All hail to it and its prizes, rewards of merit and honorable mention, desperately fought for and on rare occasions won. Serious Symptoms of Building Mania. Thus in my musings, I trace the beginnings of Hillcrest Manor when it comprised but potato and hay fields and wild pasture land, with a single homestead crowning the hill. The building mania even then throbbed in our veins and tugged at purse strings. The Last Stand Against the Insect World. The yellows began to claim their prey in the peach orchard, and apple blight, assisted by the predatory coddling moth, scarred fruit and limb and sapped the heart's life from many a noble tree. The black knot seemed to grow again in a single night on plum and quince, and our hay crop was being steadih* throttled by Canada thistle, white daisy and wild carrot. But emancipation teas daivniiif; In the rapid growth of shrubbery, trees and vines on all building sites as well as In the arboretum. That two-mile floral '■'^■Tanglefoot as a barrier was votfd a bftter insect discourager ttian bod lime wiiich ■sometimes bliglits the tree. SERIOUS SYMPTOMS OF BUILDING MANIA 75 ribbon took on added beauty, and, as the years passed, seemed to fairly shout development. The time was ripe, and I began in earnest to work out my villa dream, closely identified with which is the arboretum, tying our Farmarcadia together. Does it pay to have no recreation gaps between the working hours, hours that crowd each other hard in the mad rush to accom- plish ? A genuine burden-bearer — one forced by circumstances to be a pack-horse-treadmill-worker — loved to quote the well known lines : "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." Many a man in these strenuous days whose obituary gives his age as less than fifty years, has lived full five centuries, gauged by a slow moving past. Activity is joy, and roadways blocked with worries and wearing responsibilities, when met in the right spirit, become broad highways illumined from the source of all light. "God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world." 76 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE A WIDE RANGE. BUILDING SITES 77 CHAPTER III. The Evolution of Farmarcadia Into Hillcrest Manor, Beginning With the Arboretum — Tree Planting — Anywhere Plants — Wonder Tree — Horticultural Alphabet — Poets' Corner — Pruning — Blue Rib- bon Seven — Forest Thinning — Maple Sugar Harvest — Bugs and Butterflies — "Yarbs" — Wild Garden — Bogland — Try-out Nursery. "God the first garden made, and the first city Cain." THESE pages include not only the planting scheme of the arboretum and fruticetum but a more or less complete descrip- tion of their growth. In our lettered plan a diamond stands for an evergreen, a circle for deciduous trees, a triangle for herbaceous plants, while the figures within the symbol refer to an alphabetically indexed reference map and book, which give the name and location of each plant — evergreen, deciduous, herbaceous, perennial, and bien- nial, interspersed and varied from year to year with bright hued annuals raised from seed, root, or cutting. Plants were so placed that the taller backgrounded the low- growing varieties, while color arrangement in planting was care- fully considered both for summer and winter effects, the red branches of the dogwood, for instance, contrasting effectively with the bright yellow growth of the willows and the pea-green stalks of the kerria, backed by silver white birches that in turn fronted evergreens. These were in rare accord on glamored winter days "wherein the air bit shrewdly" and later prolonged the "uncertain glory of an April day." Did I plant them all? Yes every one, and nurtured them like children. No night was too dark for me to locate this or that shrub and tree. Building Sites. — Plantings. Each desirable building site was planted to beautify future lawn--, and develop vistas, aided by ornamental trees and shrubs, while along the highway frontage every fifty feet were set Wier's cut-leaf maples, forming a verdure-roofed roadway. Retinosperas and Biotas, both plain and variegated, broad and feathery-leaved; the tropical looking empress tree (Paulownia imperialis), the queenly Chinese magnolia, and its American relative the cucumber tree, glorious rhododendrons, azaleas, and the rare plants that Japan has poured in such prodigal profusion over our land, we planted by the hundred. 78 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE The Horticultural Sextette, or Anywhere Plants. Twenty-five years ago the ordinary village home boasted a wistaria over the front door, a clematis on veranda post, and a few scattered lilacs, spireas and weigelas on lawns or backgrounding box-edged walics and alleys. Today among hundreds of new varieties the poorest can afford the following six glorious and inexpensive plants: Ampelopis veitchii (Boston or Japanese Ivy), California privet, Thunbergii berberis, Hydrangea paniculata grandi-flora, the rambler rose — preferably the crimson and pink rather than the yellow and white, or that "agin natur" novelty of novelties, a blue rose, the latest rambler to climb the fence which encloses the queen of flowers — and Rudbeckia laciniata or golden glow. Ampelop- sis and Rudbeckia we grew satisfactorily from seed. The above plants will transform hedge rows, unsightly boulders, stumps, and even uncouth architecture into curves and lines of beauty. Four main rules guided us in the laying out and care of the arboretum : 1. Drainage, deep digging and enriched soil. 2. Knee, hand and foot work in straightening roots and pressing the earth between and about them when planting stock. 3. Pruning when planting, also at any time when not too wet or cold to work comfortably (except those in which sap flows freely, as in the maple and some vines, especially the grape). A convenient time for the worker was the main consideration rather than season. THE WONDER TREE. THE WONDER TREE 79 A somewhat broad and radical statement which must not be construed to mean that bleeding, bloom, and fruitage should not be considered, as shown in cutting back grape, rose, hj'drangea, and such plants as bloom profusely on new growth (a point to be carefull}^ guarded), but, broadly speaking, we found time of year a secondary consid- eration. Tree and Shrub Planting and Watering. 4. We never watered except during the act of planting, or in some killing drought. Why coddle the roots, teaching them to seek the surface for a daily drink which is sure to be withheld in a moment of forgetfulness. Let them work their passage, dig downward in the soil, assist by cultivation and mulching, but do not pauperize. Learn the stern lesson taught by the fairly thrifty, asphalt-covered roots of the city-grown tree. Rough treatment, but it proves the statement. In the case of plants treated as annuals, and in succulent growths which require cascades of water to attain their prodigious size, like the canna, the ricinus, the elephant's ear, and many perennial grasses, submit to the slavery if you crave the result, but let the hard wooded trees and shrubs grub for their living. If watering is an actual neces- sity to save the life of the plant, let it be a thorough drenching, then mulch, and only repeat under dire need. As a rule, herbaceous plants were separated by cutting or dividing in two offshoot, clump, and rhizome, and replanting every three or four years, soil being renewed and enriched. New stock was thus gained with which to enlarge the floral kingdom. Petal, stamen, stigma, anther, pollen, ovule, calyx, sepal, and corolla became household words in that first winter of study after buying the farm. Evening after evening we dissected plant and flower, first the green sepalled calyx, then the petals of the corolla, so thoroughly protecting the pollen bags or anthers which nestle within, and lastly the long pistil with its three essential parts, the viscid ended stigma, ever ready to grasp pollen from the legs or bodies of visiting insects and carry it through the style to the waiting ovules. When hyla and catkin heralded the arrival of spring with feverish haste we haunted bog, wood, meadow, and hillside to test book knowledge in field practice. The Wonder Trees of the Pinetum. Early in Farmarcadian days we developed a love for trees, and planted over one hundred thousand trees, shrubs, vines, and herba- ceous plants in Hillcrest Manor, prominence being given to that wonder tree, the evergreen, which even when weighted with glittering ice or fleecy snow, sways gracefully, unscathed by biting blast and unscorched by arid heat, symbolizing everlasting life, while fast growing maple and sturdy oak are absolutely dead for half the year. 80 HOrr TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Among our plantings of feature trees in the ranks of the weepers were willows, birches, mulberries, lilacs, cherries, hazels, dogwoods, the light green tufted Taxodium distichum, and elm and moun- tain ash, while among the cut-leaf were beech, birch, maple and sumach. In the seven rainbow colors lined up the maples, as seen in the varied shades of cut-leaved green, tri-color, gold, silver, purple and red, while our golden oak was a blue-blood tree. In poplars were also gold and silver and in the low-growing filbert the purple. These and many more yearly put forth leaf and blossom to gladden all who passed their wa\'. Tree Outlines. Each season brought its nature study hours — the different shades of green in the spring, the depth of color in summer, and the glorious kaleidoscopic changes in autumn, but in clear winter days we could best study tree outlines which centred about the two great divisions, excurrent, or straight trunk to the top, as in pin oak and poplar; and the more abundant deliqui'scent, as sLen m the trunk divided limbs of elm and willow. The bark named the tree and pointed to the pole as surely as the star. We crossed the threshold of one of the most interesting of nature's door^vays when on a crisp December morning by starting into the woodland to learn the names of the leafless trees. Gracefully branched maple, towering elm, and shagbark slivered hickory lined up and answered promptly as well as the spotted plane tree, silver sheened birch and clean smooth limbed beech. It was child's play to niche the evergreens but the vast majority of the trees seemed a sealed book, yet ere willow and maple flowered we had mastered one secret of the woodland through bark, trunk, and limb. Horticultural Alphabet. We strove to grow at least a single specimen of all plants found in nurseries from one end of our country to the other that our climate and soil would support Careful planning and thorough cultivation gave us a rare anthology of flowers, and it was surprising how many grew to maturity, spite of infant diseases, and indefatigable, virulent enemies, but the nursery was a grand tree and shrub feeder, and from it were replaced all dead or sickly plants. The bare ground could scarcely be discerned through swirl of leaf and bloom that glorified the arboretum. Where it could be done to advantage, we planted thickly to get immediate results ; notably in the chubby, fibrous-rooted chaps, easy movers ; and sparsely in long, tap-rooted species that uproot grudgingly, filling the spaces with the former. When elbows touched, a Patrick, a spade and a wheelbarrow, together with an overcast day and seventy-five per cent, prospect of rain almost invariably reclaimed additional land to floral possibilities, and the PINEAPPLE CLOTH 81 giving of needed air and sunshine speedily lengthened stems and branches of those that remained. Low growing box hedged the walks in the Colonial garden while high growing varieties were clipped into varied ornamental shapes. Beautiful was the spring awakening of Flora in the arboretum. The swelling pussy willows, cowl-crowned skunk cabbage whose broad green shafts seek the sunlight, and presage the rare spring blooming of snowdrop and crocus, and a bit later the yellow of the forsythia, often fringed with the damp spring snow, its branches readily blooming when cut and put in water, or forced ahead of time in our hot-beds, all did their part toward vanquishing win- ter. Then came the pink-hued daphne and onward through the full- ness of bloom of spring, summer and fall, until we reach the witch- hazel, that last bloomer, the strange shrub that waits to adorn itself in yellow finery after it has been denuded of its leaves, and gives its life-blood to ease the pain of humanity. Under the warming rays of the sun, this botanical catapult shoots the contents of its seed pods twenty feet or more somewhat in the same way as in continuance of life the poplar, a true anemophilous tree, explodes anther bags of pollen which, borne on the wings of the wind, reaches its consort tree before leaf growth can thwart its mission. The Chinese witch hazel was in the front rank of our late winter flowering shrubs. The Banner Shrub. What family of shrubs do I most enjoy? If a choice must be made, gi\e me the Viburnum, that fructifies in berries of white, black, coral and scarlet, and whose flowers and foliage vary greatly in size and color. Viburnum rhytidophyllum and Viburnum Davidii were evergreen crowns of glory 'mid their fellows. The wand-like red-berried Indian currants and Cornelian cher- ries we placed in the arboretum to contrast strongh' with the some- what straggly growth of the snowberry. Fronting these were Japanese iris, the Kempferi, whose eyes of purple and white, bronze and \ellow, peer out at one between their flag-like lea\'es like enor- mous spitz dog-faced pansies. Spain, Germany and Siberia were all taxed to fill out our iridescent fleur-de-lis patchwork quilt. Beyond the beds of iris grew stately agaves (century plant) many of them variegated, and near by in serried columns the yucca, familiarly called the Spanish bayonet or dagger or Adam's needle, with its wand-like stalks of white, bell-capped flowers, nodded to us as it did to the cliff dwellers who once spun and wove into clothing the threads that dangle from the spike-like leaves, as is done today in the far off Philippines from the foliage of the pineapple.* ■'^■To many the Yucca thread woven garments ot the cliff dweller shown In ourmuseums are of keen interest. 82 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Pineapple Cloth. Many a New England housewife in olden times robed her- self for "meetin' " in the 3'ellow pineapple cloth brought from across the water. Among the yuccas grew the fiery, yellow-hearted, red-jacketed red-hot-poker-plant, the tritoma, or torch lily, and from the shores of the Sound a batch of prickly pears was transplanted that looked like a bed of hardy, creeping cacti. In doing this we encountered for the first time the wood-jigger, that buries itself beneath the skin and revels in eating it in chunks. A soaking in hot water and rough treatment with a scrub brush dislodged the intruder, but he left unpleasant memories. One shrub section included the graceful leaved Desmodium, the fragrant strawberry shrub (the calycanthus) , the bush honey- suckle, Japan quince, sweet pepper bush, colutea, Persian and Japanese lilac, English holly, and Styrax japonica. The Poets' Corner. The Poets' Corner was edged by a border of narcissi. "Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps" was well exampled in this little plot where were seed-grown plants from Stratford-on-Avon to Kendal Green and Abney Park, and from Pere la Chaise to the Florentine and Roman "God's Acres" that front the Porta la Pinta and Porta san Paola. Many friends encouraged this fancy, sending rare specmiens. One enthusiast mailed a few grains that had lain dormant wrapped with a mummy for two thousand years in a Theban tomb, but truth compels the statement that Connecticut soil and prodigious care failed to bring them to life. n LEAA'ES OF THE OAK OF MAMRE. (Actual size.) On March 9, 1870, I stood under an enormous oak tree, one of the very few Abraham's oaks, or oaks of Mamre remaining at that time on the Plains of Mamre in Bethlehem of Judea. The giant of this group was close to ten feet in diameter, a guarantee of its great age. It was undoubtedly alive, and may have been an old tree when King Herod sent forth his fiendish edict to slay the children of Judea. THE POETS' CORNER 83 This mighty tree's progenitors sheltered Abraham and his flocks when they came up from Egypt to possess the land. "Then Abraham remo\'ed his tent and came and dwelt in the Plains of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar unto the Lord." Genesis XIII, 18. The memory of those huge sheltering oaks of ]\Iamre, the scene of his joyous entrance into Hebron, stayed with the patriarch Abra- ham until the end, and in the cave of Macphelah, almost within their shadow, according to his dying behest, the stricken Israelites buried their revered leader. Here also, in this family rock tomb in natural sequence, Isaac and Jacob, his son and grandson, found a final resting place near these same mighty trees that Abraham loved. I picked the above peculiar leaves that spring morning from the only one of the Mamre oaks now left, which is, I am told, the only mature specimen of its species in the world. Perhaps we kept the half dozen acorns too long before planting, for they refused to germinate, though they received more care than any other seeds in the Poets' Corner, and di-appomtment number twentv was entered on the debit side of the ledger page marked "Experiments," under which caption we chronicled successes and failures in Farm- arcadia. The Tree. The best epitome of human life in nature is the tree, so closely symbolizing birth, growth, beauty, strength; sturdily withstanding blast and storm, until, like an old man bowed with a century of work, the roots loosen, the top breaks, the trunk splits asunder, and worm and mold attack that «-hich, having performed its work, must submit to dissolution and readjustment, as Dr. Holmes realistically pictures: "Now his nose is thin. And it rests upon his chin Like a staff ; And a crook is in his back And a melancholy crack In his laugh." Joys of Pruning. Immediately after the tree was planted, its methodical care began, but it was rarely arduous work; a lopped off limb; an uprooting of the socketing sprouts, a thinning of the branches, made a thing of beauty of what might have been supreme ugliness. Neglect of the pruning knife, with ton close planiincr^ will absolutely ruin the most attractive tree. One of our greatest pleasures was that of prvming. To let in air and sunlight; to spread out the spindler, and train upward the low grower ; to cut out the leprous black knot 84 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE in the plum and quince — almost a herculean task after neglect had allowed the disease to gain headway — to remove cancer-rol from the older trees, paint the bruised wood and then fill the cavity with cement ; and to fasten with iron rods controlled by turnbuckles the large limbs that threatened to split away from the parent stem, but which with care would live for years, — all this was most fascinating. Haphazard Forest Thinning. No ruthless gang of wood choppers cleared our woods, for an hour of ignorant labor might have destroyed the matchless growth of many years, so we blazed for cutting such trees as checked the develop- ment of the best, but allowed among others dogwood, laurel and sassafras, as well as bitter sweet and native clematis (virgin's bower) to grow as nature willed.* The cup-shaped tulip, with its cone shaft of verdure ; the fra- grant, sturdy, right-angle growth of the sassafras — even the scarred and blotched buttonwood or sycamore, which is a veritable giant, as we in the east know trees, and gives up in a day its first crop of delicate green leaves to its inveterate fungus enemy, then immediately reclothes its denuded branches — were all represented on the farm. The maple family in varied form and coloring has few peers, from the dwarf, split-thread-leaf maples of Japan, some of which retain their form for weeks after being picked, through all their varieties of gold and crimson to the graceful native maples that dot our landscape, and again the variegated vieing in color with the varie- gated arbutilon, among others the purple maple with its blood red under leaf, the tri-striped bark variety, also Wier's cut-leaf, of rapid growth, with gracefully festooned branches, its only bitter enemy the "four winds of heaven." "Clean as a maple" was rarely a misnomer. All were grace- ful and beautiful whether seen in massed oiitline or close detail. Colors from a purple which crowded black, to the lightest hues of green and bronze flashed in sunlight and waved with the breeze. In bark they ranged from the rugged cork to those as smooth as a beech and shaded from dark brown to the white and green striped. Maple Sugar Harvest. When summer's reign was ended, and the frost-laden north wind wrapped the sugar maple in its wonderfully beautiful mantle of yellow and red, we were glad to have planted this tree with such prodigality, with the idea of a farm industry in future years. Bar- ring a wandering rose bug and the borer, the maple has few insect ■■^■■We uprooted tlif lam b-kill variety of laurel which grew sparsely in the sheep pasture and from which the bees distilled poisonous honey. THE BLUE RIBBON SEVEN 85 enemies, and drives its roots into the most unpromising soil, seeming at times almost to draw sustenance from the very rock, often shar- ing honors with the cedar in being a cleft-in-the-rock tree. Maples edged the arboretum, lined the drives and diversified the lawns in Hillcrest Manor. The Blue Ribbon Seven. Among other beautiful trees on our lawns were seven that halted the most uninterested and careless passer-by, and forced his admiration, one, the Cedrus deodora, whose rare, blue, moss-like foliage attracted instant attention. This was partially screened by a mixed group of Weymouth and red pmes supplemented in winter with cedar boughs thrust into the ground, and built upward into a protecting bower shielding it from the death-dealing winter sun and biting wind. Near it was a Nordman's fir, the silver lining of whose leaves glisten in sunlight and moonlight, flanked on either side by Koster's Colorado spruce, as blue as bluest steel, whde one hundred feet from any other tree grew a glorious, kingty copper beech, and directly across the lawn a magnificent specimen of one of the most beautiful trees grown, the fern-leaf beech. A golden oak glowed sunshine on the copper beech. Our seventh was the queenly, cut-leaf birch, whose silvery branches peeped through a tracery of delicate green leaves. A passing glance at this made one nature's debtor.* The above seven trees, with one exception, held the blue ribbon against all other aspirants, though it seems invidious to restrict one's selection to a paltry seven, when forest and nursery fairly teem with specimens clamoring for recognition. The Elm. Towering above the blue ribboners and in a sense outrivaling their skin-deep beauty, was the king of trees, the elm, the pride of our forbears. For nearly fifty years two of these had looked down on the farm house roof, and with o'erclasped branches seemed to breathe companionship, protection and even benediction. It was fully twenty feet to the first dividing limb crotch, so that sunlight and air brightened and cooled the dwelling in summer and in winter the gracefully swaying network of limbs and branches gave life to a dead landscape. | The dwarf horse chestnut, the delicate lea\'ed Sophora japonica, the tremulous silver and in contrast the golden poplar; the sturdy white oak whose outstretched arms sheltered our biggest herd of cattle, the buckeye and the xanthocera, cork and Camperdown elms, the rarely beautiful Cedrus Atlantica glauca, the Katsura tree, and in a low bit of ground the rosemary and Kilmarnock willows, as "■^■'A taxodium diestichum fought hard for a nicfie in our arboreal frail of fame but was finalh' barred as to be at its best it requires the artificial aid of severe^pruning. fLightning and tornado, both dire enemies of tree life, were the undoing of our farm house elms. 86 HOJr TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE well as scores of others, gave beautjf and variety to lawn, meadow, and hillside. Folly of Transplanting Forest Trees. Costly experiment taught that trees transplanted from the woods to the open generally stand still or die, while those from the nursery make rapid progress, that pruning both root and branch and several transplantings do wonders for tree development, but that native trees taken from a clearing often grow finely. The propagation of trees and shrubs from seeds was interesting, but the wait too long, except in the case of pit-grown peaches, which generally proved worthless sports. Spare the shears and you spoil the tree might well be axiomatic with the horticulturist, yet many an amateur hesitates before his choicest evergreens. We changed scores of straggling branched and bedraggled looking Norway spruces into pyramids of beauty from sod to topmost twig by simply beheading them a foot or two for several successive years, but not in freezing weather — thus giving the lie in part to the old saying: "The prettiest things in youth and the ugliest in old age are a pig, a negro baby, and an evergreen tree." The Monkey Climber. Among our natural curiosities was a wild grapevine that in some strange way had leaped without visible contact to the top of a lofty fifty-year old tree. It was fitly named the monkey climber and the loftiest vine in our viticetum. The snowy cascade of the weeping Japanese cherry, a three days' wonder, ere its rarely beautiful white blossoms, grown dingy, wilt and fall ; the weeping mulberry which screened an arbor seat and swept toward the ground in serried columns; drooping beeches and birches silhouetting almost grotesquely against the skv-line, yet when well grown, rising like camels' humps, one above the other, intensifying the tall, straight, dignified beauty of contrasting poplars (the Cottonwood) and lordly elms — all these and more were to be found in Hillcrest arboretum, in rare cases goaded into unusual forms by the pruning knife. The birches were lined to form a sentinel barrier that far outshone in beauty the time-honored picturesque Lombardy poplar that unless planted with a positive end in view, grows straggly and moth-eaten when it reaches lonely maturity. Twin Spurs of Guano and Shears. With guano and shears one can metamorphose everything that grows. Few trees are homelier when left to themselves to struggle and straggle along than Taxodium distichum (southern cypress) and few more attractive than this same tree ^\'hen judicious pruning compels it against its habit to form a mass of closely grown, pea green, feathery foliage. The long waving branches of the weigela, the result of two or three years' pruning, are the acme of HISTORY SACRED AND PROFANE 87 grace, tufted with pink blossoms in June, lacking only fragrance to rival the unrivaled apple blossom. With restraint removed they thrust with added force upward and downward their long graceful branches. Grown thus, once seen they can never be forgotten. Thunbergii berberis, which sometimes shrinks under the pruning knife, is a flaming torch in the autumn, and passes through the insect onslaught unscathed, as does the Vibernum plicatum, with its globular snow-white bloom, while the flowers of its American cousin no sooner begin to open than the petals are badly eaten and stained. In the Rosa rugosa from Japan, was found another seemingly insect-proof plant. Even when not in bloom its fresh luxuriant foliage and later scarlet haws were a delight to the eye. The scope of the arboretum constantly widened until it com- passed a great variety. Hundreds of grouped plantings showed in their season masses of vivid color. The azalea, garbed in carmine and orange; the rhododendron, with evergreen foliage and large blossoms of varied colors, and peonies and dahlias, practically fungi-immune plants giving glorious color and form effects — single, double, starred and threaded, and well worth wider cultivation — vied with each other to brighten our floral realm, while in late summer came the big heads of hydrangeas of roseate hue, which when cut and dried far surpass in beauty the everlasting, that "posy" of childhood. From trees and shrubs to grasses is a wide leap, as they creep upward from the low, straggly, witch-grass-rooted variegated ribbon grass to the stately wavuig plumes of the Erianthus ravennae or the more tender King Henry of Navarre white plumed pampas grass. The evergreen, Bambusa metake, rarely grown, but of great merit, its pinnated leaves forming a mass of verdure both summer and winter, carpeted several low, damp and unsightly spots, while from Japan we had the cross-striped Eulalia, the Zebrina japonica varigata, that plant that disproves the sometimes accepted theory that variation of color is a symptom of debility as it is painfully healthy from deepest rootlet to highest leaf tip. The Arundo donax varigata needing M'inter protection is far more striking than the plain green variety, and with its corn-like growth o'ertops and contrasts well with the reed-like waving leaves of the Eulalia gracillima. We leaned strongly toward variegated plants, from the Euonymous radicans var, and the graceful variegated kerria, one of the most striking shrubs, up through sturdy weigela, dogwood, forsythia, althea and privet, represented in the tree line by a towering, spotted, acuba ash, seem- ingly a giant croton, and maples galore. History, Sacred and Profane. Many a page of history, both sacied and profane, can be read in the arboretum. Yonder is the massed purple bloom of the Judas tree (the Cercis), and near it the Japanese variety of the same, which has a closer blossom and richer hue. Next grows the bitter 88 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE wormwood, of shiftless and straggling habit, and in season the morphine poppy of China, that life saver or destroyer (according to its use) whitens the ground with its falling petals, while close by is one of those willows whose parent stock wept o'er the grave of the prisoner of St. Helena. At its base grew a clump of conium (poison hemlock), Athens' unrighteous death draught for phil- osopher and criminal. A thicket of nicotianas (tobacco plant) with their tough green leaves and tropical growth represents a cen- turj' or more of slavery for the negro cultivators and probably many centuries yet to come of slavery to consumers. In the background is the Paradise Tree or Tree of Heaven, the unfairly maligned though odorous root-spreading ailanthus. Lilies were grown in large beds set generally in sandv leaf mold. There were many varieties, from the maidenly shy, naiad-like drooping lily of the valley that seeks shade and grows best in damp soil, to the sturdy, brazen, gold-banded lily of Japan, through all gradations of Easter lily, aggressive, staring tiger lily, yellow field lily, oddly spotted toad lily, the Tricytis hirta from Japan, and near it, the Tigridia, every morning showing its tender newly-born bizarre blossoms, the low growing, variegated leaved Funkia, or day lily, the St. Bruno's lily and blackberry lily, also narcissi in dazzling hue. Large beds of high stalked perennial phloxes, nodding standards of flaming color half the summer, and pink and white close to the ground patches of phlox subulata, also Astilbe japonica, the latter forced in winter, were plentifully scattered through the grounds. Beds of blue-eyed forget-me-nots and clumps of dog-faced pansies were planted profusely and mind-labeled flowers that talk, Aquilegia from the native red and yellow to the cultivated browns and grays, gave charming variety, and bulbs from scillce to sword-leaved gladioli grew in rare abandon and great variety. No longer did June sadlv view the shriveled dying blossoms of iris and columbine for late bloom- ing varieties of these and other gorgeous early flowers lingered with us until autumn — Veronica, the iron plant, snow on the mountain (variegated spurge) ginseng (at eight dollars a pound, a valuable crop) jonquils, lupines, pyrethrum, tarragon, turtle-head, rock cress, vetch, wood sorrel, pinks, perennial pea, cinqiiefoil, harebell, Jacob's ladder, knotweed, liverwort, loosestrife, lungwort, leek, mandrake, sneeze-weed, sneezewort, bell flower, primrose, foxglo^'e, mahonia, monkshood, and blue spirea grew in profusion, and holhJiock and larkspur waved triumphantly aloft their banner spikes of bloom. "And the jessamine fair, and the sweet tuberose, The sweetest flower for scent that grows. And all rare blossoms from every clime ,: Grow in that garden in perfect prime." UNLOCKING NATURE'S SECRETS 89 Among the tender varieties were the odd little cigar plant, set near a bed of sensitive plants that shrank into themselves at the slight- est touch, and next to it a bed of ice plants glittered in the sunlight. \ ellow-gemmed moneywort gave us a fidl money's worth of compact bloom for an eighth of a mile in the spaces between plants in the arboretum, but after a couple of years the irksome and back-breaking task of separating weed and moneywort ended this dream of a golden carpet beneath the shrubbery. Royal Pedigree of the Fields. The arboretum had a wide gamut, native shrub often side by side with the rarest products of China and Japan, and, as the despised and down-trodden delicately laced wild carrot outshines in beauty some plant of extended pedigree, so the brilliant scarlet berries of the black alder, the intense orange tuft of the milkweed (that variety seen far afield) ; the feathery, curled wild clematis, the clambering, orange-fruited bitter sweet, and that glorious red dart of the fireweed shamed into mediocrity plants whose lineage is traced through a hundred propagating houses. In our collection were the hobble bush, Scotch broom, wayfaring tree, the withe-rod, the hazel bush, whose branches the well digger believes ^A'eirdly disclose hidden waterways, and a clump of flowering raspberries, shading a patch of winterberries. Stroll Path. Amid the dense growth backgrounding the arboretum was laid out a stroll-path a half mile in length, completely hidden from the drive by the entourage of blossom and foliage. Rustic seats, generally a simple log, were set in bosky cover in this greenery retreat of the birds, and here one learned a few of their many secrets. Unlocking Nature's Secrets. It was once my good fortune to spend a day with our State micro- biologist. We roamed through fields, woods and fruit orchards, on our way stepping into a vegetable cellar. It took a full half hour to drag my friend out again to the daylight, away from cobweb, cocoon, dust-covered beam and wall, to me dank nothings; to him another world. Then came a rarely instructive walk of barely half a mile but lasting long past dinner time. Keenly interesting was this opening of nature's storehouse by one who holds a key. Discoveries everTO'here ! The gray bunched elongation of a grass spear, a cocoon, a slight increase in the thickness of an apple twig, another snugly clinging to the bark; the curled leaf "some happy creature's palace"; a bruised twig ; a broken limb ; a trampled bit of grass ; a footprint in the soft mud at the edge of the brook ; a twitter in yonder copse : a bursting song of divine melody from the topmost twig of a black walnut; a whirr as of flapping wings; the buzz of insects — a thousand "90 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE — no: a million sights and sounds to feed eye, ear and brain, if man could but grasp them. The camera was a constant friend and life had an added charm when the photomicrographic field still farther enlarged our vision. Bugs and Butterflies. Introduction Day was repeated several times by that obliging State microbiologist and when fall winds had swirled from the oak most of its leaves and disclosed to our newly awakened appreciation of insect life the tightly woven leaf nest of the caterpillar, intro- ductions had culminated in an extended but one sided calling list, and as winter approached we lost no time in making many aurelian calls. Man's verjr existence rests on the gauze wings of the bee and the butterfly. At the base of the pyramid of all life is the insect world. An insectless world is in the main a flowerless world, with the unavoidable sequence of death to bird, beast and man. Adjustment and balance can only be obtained through control of the predatory hordes that swarm over our planet, their seeming aim man's destruc- tion, but changed by a directing hand to construction. It is an innumerable army that of these night and day propagators and scav- engers who close heel man's progress toward the zenith of his powers, and as he draws aside the veil and peers into the outer court of this phase of nature he senses unseen and potent forces far beyond his present ability to understand. The microscope and the avarium aid mightily toward mastering the alphabet of the insect life. Man's physical inhumanity to man is as nothing to the carnage and butchery with which the insect world reeks from pole to pole. Let us hope that the line immortalizing the dying w^orm "it feels a pang as deep as v\rhen a giant dies" is only poetic license. Insect life is prolific in schemes to side-track the juggernaut of destruction that even before birth is often on its trail following out the wonderful warring laws by which nature is kept in equilibrium.* When the praying martin or devil's riding horse fiercely devours his victims alive, and the ichneumon fly incubates under the skin or within the intestinal canal of its benefactor, then slowly devours the inner vitals, pierces through the skin an avenue to freedom, and leaves by the wayside the shell tenement of its protector, let us hope that neither nerve, muscle, nor delicate organ has felt what to man's sensi- tively attuned system w^ould have been untold agony. Insect life, the most prolific of all life, claims the closest study. Here the sur- vival of the fittest is pronounced. To eat, to live, to escape its enemies and to propagate, is its entire decalog, as in primeval man, but the endless nonillions of the insect world aggregating in the ■■■The star and the aphis are extremes in realms heretofore practicallj' untrod by man. Authorities state that a single pair of garden aphides absolutely undisturbed would in a few months plaster the entire globe with a solid mass of their progeny, as the fish of the ocean unless preyed on by their fellows would turn that stupendous ocean into a mass of putrid flesh. A world out of balance would cease to be a world. EGGS TO IMAGO 91 lepidopteras nlone over hity thousand named species, fortunatel}? still gro\'el and see but that which keeps them alive. Among the fascinating facts that after dinner studies taught and which we had little trouble in proving was that the hair}' caterpillar who lays her eggs along the edges of a freshlj' eaten leaf does so with the deliberate purpose of having her offspring devour the vitals of the voracious insect that gulps them down. Mightily interesting was that insect who carries sail covers just as the yachtsman does to protect the wings of his yacht, with the deeper purpose of color disguise from his enemies. The tent caterpillars pitch their moisture, predatory insect, and even bird-proof tents in the forked branches of the cherrj- and apple. They are strongly built and will stand persistent onslaught. After foraging, the colony returns to the fold from time to time to recover from its gluttonous debauches. Leaf-Rollers. We found that the leaf-roller weevil partially cuts off the supply of sap from the leaf to make it limp enough to roll into a snug egg pocket. Leaf hoppers hopped into the spread net of the carnivorous spider, the one who swallows his nearest relatives with fiendish gusto. Some plants guard with a hairy growth their chalice of nectar from such crawling freebooters as ants and beetles, saving their mines of sweetness for the bee and his pollen carrying fellows. A wonderfully busy and particular little fellow is that same pollinating bee. Unlike the fly, who takes everything in sight, he demands aesthetic coloring, choicest nectar, and delicious odor. Much of bee life begins its work 'mid the willow blossoms of early spring and the death of the fall asters sees the blotting out of a vast major- ity of these mighty purveyors to man's existence. Egg to Imago. Within the egg of a canker worm is epitomized the beginning of many a parasitical insect. Another parasite dwelling in its fellows is so wedded to hygiene as to cut a sewage outlet in the skin of his living, pulsating temporary home through which to eject all refuse. The woolly bear caterpillar thatches its cocoon with its own wiry spiny hair to withstand and discourage bird attacks. Laze Bugs. Laze bugs, such as the ambush, the flower bug and the ant lion, who can starve like a camel, eschew foraging, but, securely hidden, spring on their unsuspecting victims as they seek the lure of blossom nectar or inadvertently slide into the little sand pit trap built and set by his lordship, the ant lion, plebeianly called the doodle bug. Typical marauders were the wasps. With omniverous appetites thev stung fruit and insect alike, often killing the active cicadas. 92 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Cuckoos of the Insect Tribe. Cuckoos of the insect tribe are legion, and not only parasites, but often assassins, laying their eggs in the nests of other insects, fully- cognizant that their progeny will eat their foster brothers and sisters in both egg and body form. The Skunk Insect. The saw fly unsheathes her pair of double action cross-cut and splitting saws to mutilate and deposit in leaf and tender twig her eggs which, when hatched, repeat the vandal act of their progenitors. The saw fly is the skunk of the insect tribe, and on occasion squirts a moist and acid stream on its enemies. As the track walker swings a warning red lantern, so the color warning in the flashings of some species of black and red-winged insects proclaims to marauding freebooters that spiny hairs sting and acid flesh sickens, thus for the time being postponing the inevitable. Queen of Night. The Queen of Night, the Luna, as well as the hawk moths, in appearance like humming birds, were among our richest treasures 'mid a collection that grew apace as our interest in the wide field of lepidoptera increased. We aimed to know the genealogical tree from deepest rootlet to topmost twig of every specimen in our little cabinet, which was jealously guarded within protecting glass from rodent and moth. The evolution from egg to worm or larva and from larva to pupa or chrysalid, thence to fly and again back to egg, was a fascinat- ing study. Head, thorax, abdomen, antennas, two winged and four winged, four legged and six legged, all came in unending procession under the microscope, which opened wide the door to a heretofore closed world. Though unable to attest by sight that the industrious ant was as well a foster mother, carrying within its protecting nest the eggs of other insects and rearing them with her own, it so read and we accepted it as we did many another surprising statement that we had neither time nor ability to prove, such as the ant keeping milch cow aphides and slaves. One most interesting example of concealment was found on an elm tree; a caterpillar having a rough serrated bulging skin, an exact counterpart of the ridges in the elm leaf — even the sharp eyes of the birds seemed but rarely to pierce this environmental disguise. The Tramp Insect. Tramp by name and nature one might label the walking stick. The cares of motherhood sit lightly on her shoulders, as she drops her eggs helter-skelter in grass, woodland, or bog, and but few escape the maw of the hungry ones. It was rare joy to thus roam in this minor within a major world and watch in sunlight and shadow, in dense wood and open HAJVKS OF THE INSECT WORLD 93 meadow, the great unending procession of insect life, the alder leaf case bearer staggering along under his pack, and near him a sturdy caterpillar laden with a whole nest of parasitical eggs, each contain- ing an embryo grave digger, which he must carry to his grave. Slen- der waisted mud and digger wasps we found 'mid the insects that pupate in earth cells. The list of non-silk spinning cocoon manu- facturers includes many vegetivorous insects, the potato bug, wire worm, crane ify, cut and tomato worm and root eating maggots. There also we dug up many of the fruit eaters in the first ranks of which were the curculio, the canker worm and apple maggot. The elm tree sphinx (at times, the immovable) and the destructne elm beetle, fortunately for the tree lover, are also earth pupaters. Tangle- foot encircling the elm trunk will keep her well under foot. The regal moth, the zebra caterpillar and a full line of grass diggers, all traced their ancestral homes to earth catacombs. In most of our insect hunts we found the ever busy ichneumon flies flitting from place to place, one main object in life being to puncture the skin of some less active insect and oviposit their death eggs broadcast among their fellows. Hawks of the Insect World. Dragon flies, as they lived their lives 'mid scurrying hordes of flying victims, were in a class by themselves. The true dragon we found lights with spread wings, the damsel with folded upright wings. Night Moths. In strolling through the woods close scrutiny discovered flat against the bark of beech and birch the night moths, each having selected the tree closest to its coloring, the sharpest eyed birds often taking them for a bit of wood. A true possum insect which feigns death when facing disaster is the large sphinx caterpillar, who hangs perfectly motionless head downward for hours to deceive its enemies. Beetle hunting yielded a wide quarry, — whirligig, water, snout, tiger, black, blister, long-horned, the smug little ladybird, the epitome of bug cleanliness, water scorpions, water striders and boatmen all involuntarilv joined the stick pin colony. The great mass of insect life, aside from the stingers as exampled in bee, hornet and spider, and a few spiny haired caterpillars, has no protection from its enemies. Concealment through color and in habitation is its strongest hold on life but at best often a broken reed. One Romeo of the insect world, the cricket, in season contin- ualh' serenades Juliet with rasping chirpings which ri\al the Katy- dids. Footless lar\-ae, aphidivorous gourmands, stayed where maternitv left them and leeched life from contact with branch, leaf, and insect. Plants as well as insects we found arrogantly commandeered by some of these tiny autocrats, notably when the willow leaves were 94 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE forced to surround insect e^gs with red bean shaped galls and grass, stalk, branch, twig and leaf, and oak apple grew and thickened at their behest, giving up stored nutriment to nourish the trespassing pupa. Those interesting insects, the leaf tent miners, claimed our closest inspection. Thej' were much at home among the oaks, red maples and locusts — their little brown parchment-like blotches giving loca- tion of another insect's palace within the leaf structure.* The butterf!}' field was studded with manj' stars and those of first magnitude included the black monarch, the sapphire mail, vice- roy, tortoise, swallow tail and tiger tail, red admiral, painted lady, the mourning cloak, the comma and the yellow asterias.' As a rule the insect world is an orphaned world. It is true the monarch and tortoise butterflies and a few other species follow the birds to the South in large flocks, some locusts bury in the ground, notably the seventeen year cicadas, and a few butterflies, for example the mourning cloak, hibernate in hollow tree or under buildings, but the great mass of struggling, warring insect life, ^vhen its purpose of scavenging, propagating and protecting its unborn offspring is accomplished, joins that endless, ever moving procession of the passers into the beyond and an orphaned progeny takes up and repeats the endless order of being. Our Rosarium. "Where you tend a rose, mjr lad, A thistle cannot grow.'' A patch three rods square was given up to the queen of flowers. Hardy perpetuals were the favorites but a bed of teas bloomed the entire summer even to early December, and, sheltered and pro- tected, wintered finely. Tree roses, as well as tree peonies, cornered the rosarium. The same three rod patch was a battle ground whereon raged our fiercest combats with the insect world, but eternal vigilance gave an unrivaled harvest of form and color. Pruning and budding shrubs in tree form we tried out, notably in the rose, azalea, and hydrangea, but soon concluded that a tree's a tree and a shrub's a shrub, which resulted in better balanced growth, flower, and fruit. A Semi-Tropical Corner. The very word tropics suggests gleaming sunshine, refreshing shade, hrisiht colored birds and delicately perfumed flowers, and in our arboretum were corners where every plant, as well as its environ- ■•■■Clust scrutiny of stream, branch and trunk rc\'ea]ed the cylindrical stone house of the caddis worm, the shell palace of the bark louse, the wooden burrow of the bumble bee, and the leaf mansion of the cherry leaf twi^ tier who builds a high class dwelling as Insect dwellings rank, homes doubtless as satisfying to them as the most pretentious dwellings of the race of giants that crush them under foot. The "dog eat dog" spirit of insect life, that indomitable courage in bee, ant. flea, hornet, and mosquito, that neither cringes before nor fears its betters, if unchecked would soon depopulate the earth. PLJNT LABELS THAT LABEL 95 ment, seemed tropical. Here were the Aralia spinosa, or its more delicately framed sister, the Dimorphantus, which nevertheless yields its sceptre less quickly to the frost king, fronting a beautiful specimen of purple blossoming Paulownia imperialis; then came the copper- hued Ricinus and glorious cannas of rampant growth and brilliant color — assiduous care forcing the rankest growers to leap upward a dozen feet — while in the foregroimd were elephant's ears (Cal- adium) often a yard or more in length. By copious watering with liquid fertilizer many of its leaves grew to the length of five feet, and in sharp contrast and goodly quantity a wide variety of sub- arctic plants, among them a bed of edelweiss from parent stock we brought from the base of the Matterhorn. Near by were Iceland moss, saxifrage, andromeda, ranunculus, clethra, and cloudberry. Semi-hardy Canna. During the past mild season, a canna bed planted against a south wall on slightly sloping ground wintered finely unblanketed, proving that with protection and under certain conditions, even in Connecticut, the tender canna can be thus handled. Evergreens were scattered through the grounds in over one hundred varieties, totaling well into the thousands. Grouped in effective contrast were green and golden yew, Colorado blue spruce, silver fir, cypress, and Biota, in silver and gold, the gold that shines as brightly in winter as in summer, as well as that variety that dons a bronze hued coat in the "melancholy days." There were also green and variegated, spatulated and pointed, feath- ered and curled Biotas and Retinosperas of varied hue, a bewildering labyrinth of form and color that to the real lover of trees spelled Elysian realms, and vastly improved the contour, foliage and bloom of our two-mile garden strip. Let me relate an incident apropos of tree, shrub and plant cultiva- tion. I had journeyed far to see what was considered the finest private collection of evergreens in our entire country, its owner a scholar, as well as a strenuous business man. Standing before a bed of inconspicu- ous Echeverias of a hundred or more varieties that formed part of this wonderful collection of trees, shrubs, and plants, I asked the gardener why there was not a single label to be seen in the entire planting. The lack of real appreciation on the part of the family and friends was betrayed by his reply: "Mr. knows their names, I know their names, and no one else cares." Plant Labels That Label. We all cared in Hillcrest Manor; so did some of our friends. For labels, in addition to a carefully adjusted tree label, we used soft copper strips about four inches long and an inch wide. On these were indelibly traced with a sharp steel point the names, after which they were attached by a bit of copper wire to an eighteen-inch lengtli of galvanized wire, one end of which was thrust into the ground at the 96 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE base of each tree or shrub. This plan prevents the usual wire cutting of stem and branches, while labels are indestructible, and easily lifted and read. True, careless workmen sometimes disturbed or plant growth concealed, but generally before that happened the name of the plant was fi.\ed in the minds of those who cared to know. Bark abra- sion in staking trees was prevented by having the cord or wire enclosed in a short piece of hose. The Only Work That Kills. Country life relie\'es nerve strain, sweeps cobwebs from the brain and gives much of the exhilaration called happiness, yet many stand within reach of these iniiuences without sensing them. I can name a hundred or more men now in their graves, who I am certain, would have lived for years if their homes had been in the country. A new horse or cow, a brood of chickens just out of the shell, the bloom of a rare flower, a newly laid out road, a new dog kennel — even new disappointments and new worries so they are not associated with the daily grind — keep the heart young and pave the way to health. It is severe tension along one line that kills. I pity the man of millions or of pennies whose burden is daily carried in a beaten track from either counting house or ditch-digging to a city home. One needs the invigorating air of hill or ocean, not for a month or two, but for at least a portion of every month of the year, if it's no more than a Sunday tramp 'cross country. Man in his strenuous search for the fountain of youth finds that country living economizes best the "failing river of life." "The world is too much with us; late and soon Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; Little we see in nature that is ours ; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! Great God! I'd rather be A pagan, suckled on a creed outworn ; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have feelings that were less forlorn : Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." In the arboretum record book were scheduled with keen interest the homely every-day names borne by those flowers of the wild which grew in profusion on hill and in woodland and dale, meadow and rough pasture. Daffy doun dilly, bouncing bet, black-eyed Susan, ox-eyed daisy, Hessian field daisy, Michaelmas daisy, hepatica, wild balsam or touch-me-not, corn flower or bachelors' button, incomparable dandelion — the every month in the year flower — sky-blue violets, spring beauties, and the wind flower, the anenome, grew in profusion, delighting the opening eyes of childhood with their continual floral surprises, and glorifying maturity with tenderest recollections of the "YARBS" 97 budding romances of youth. Only common field flowers, but mighty factors through the centuries in developing and ministering to man- kind. "Yarbs." In different corners of the hedgerows grew "yarbs," and at the edge of the woods and brook shrubs and roots that from the time of the progenitors of Philip of Mount Hope through a half score of American ancestors have cured the ills of puling infancy and eased the aches of old age. "Scarce any plant is growing here that against death some weapon does not bear." Among these mute, but mighty warriors, defenders and prolongers of man's life, ^vere thoroughwort, stramonium or jimson weed, chamo- mile, senna, boneset, snakeroot, rhubarb, self-heal, sarsaparilla, rue, smartweed, plantain, mandrake, gentian, wormwood, fever-bush, rheu- matism root, alum root, colchicum, bloodroot, bayberrj', flagroot, arnica, colic root or star grass, sage, sorrel and tansy, and in larger growth toothache tree and balm of gilead, planted in a sheltered valley, as well as sassafras and witch-hazel, some of which in our home brewed extracts competed and often successfully with those of the apothecary shop. We brewed decoctions from lily of the valley and the fringe tree, and from the rampant growths of spearmint and spikenard, pennyroyal, bergamot, and spice bush, basil or thyme, fennel, caraway, marjoram, valerian and peppermint we expressed perfumes that permeated every corner of buffets and low and high- bo5's at times packed to their capacity with trousseaux, bed linen and best bibs and tuckers. The animal kingdom in our fields, woods and at brookside had generous representation from the old-time grannies, or rather let us crown them geniuses. They labeled goatsbeard, skunk-cabbage, horse- radish, horse-geranium and horse-mint, adder's tongue and rattle- snake root, spiderwort and bugbane, crowfoot and coltsfoot, cat- nip, ragged-robin and wake-robin, cat-tail flag and cat-brier; cowberry, cowslip, cow-parsnip and goose grass, with a side line of milkweed, butter and eggs and buttercups, and dogwood, dogbane, foxglove, chickweed, hen and chickens, hogweed, horse tail, duckweed, leopard's bane, crane's bill and squirrel corn, crowberry and crowfoot, sheep- berry, shadbush, nannyberry, crab apple, and toadstools, often over- night-surprise-plants. The delicate pink of the bleeding heart, the spider-web gauze of baby's breath, the gracefully waving, pure white festoons of the bridal wreath, were near neighbors to the matrimony vine ; its pale, dull pink blossoms, made still duller by the blazing star (called the devil's bit, the old fashioned cure for quinsy), and scarlet-lightning, which, with the Star of Bethlehem, brightened hillside and pasture. 98 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Soil and varied conditions on hill, meadow, at brookside, in lowland, and deep woods of our two hundred and fifty acres made it possible, with the aid of the birds, for a wide range of plants to find a footing within our borders. There were man-of-the-earth and jack-in-the-pulpit, the bitter tasting corms of which gave Sir Bruin when he formerlj' ranged our marsh land a bog onion breath, near the skull-cap and squaw-root or cancer-root, the latter fasten- ing tightly to the roots of the beeches; maiden hair, the uncan- nily named corpse plant, commonly called the Indian pipe; also dragon-arum and dragon-root and prince's feather, St. John's wort, and St. Peter's wort. The pokeweed, which carries in its root death to humans, we destroyed. Great masses of ragweed, bur- dock, and mullein infringed on territory belonging to their betters, beggar's tick often tagged our best store clothes and tumble weed through fall winds tumbled dire trouble to our corn and potato fields. Sitfast (Ranunculus repens) fought hard for even standing room. Mushrooms, lichens, and mosses grew wherever they could gain a foothold. Jewel weed, rosin or compass plant, ladies' slip- per and ladies' thumb and smocks and tresses all flung their offerings at our feet, keeping pace with the seasons. These wonderful floral out- bursts of nature repeated before our ver\' eyes the ever present and unsolved enigmas of birth, life, death and resurrction as they have been repeated year after year and century after century. "Our birth at best a sleep and a forgetting. The soul that riseth with us, our life's star. Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home." The Wild Garden. One walled-in meadoAV was in the main left as a wild garden. In it was a diversity of plants and flowers, its boundary walls and crevices covered with the purple berried ivy of lusty, bushy-headed growth, often by contact so poisonous to humanity that because of its searing touch and brilliant hue it might be called the trail of the fire serpent, but eaten with impunity and well relished by horses and cattle. It was allowed to remain for the sake of its glorious golden-red autumn coloring, in contrast with the intense fire-red of the woodbine with which it was intertwined and often ran races, the goal being the topmost branch of some tall cedar whose green background brought out vividly their combined and rarely beautiful autumn shades, but any growing near the house was uprooted in deference to its malarial reputation as well as its poison blight, in fact, poison in leaf and rootlet lurked in woodland and meadow. The poison ivy, prickly nettle and pokeweed warred as far and MEAT EATING PLANTS 99 as deeply as inanimates could war against the flesh, but the twin guardians, knowledge and care, gave them a losing battle. The discovery of a thicket of sweet fern in the meadow, (thresholding the smoker's paradise of the farmer boy) gave our youngest as great a thrill as the blare of the siren calliope heralding the May circus that periodically interfered with spring planting. Here the parasitical dodder relentlessly throttles to death the staff which aided it to climb upward toward the life-giving sunlight, cxactlx m undeviiopcd hiunans shoulder ride and crush their felloivs. There also flourished the bindweed, the wild morning glory and patche-3 of chokeberries. Water Plants. We lined the banks of the brook that ran through the centre of the meadow with iris, flagroot and such other water plants as we could collect. Great masses of mint and cress edged its borders and in a small pool were grown Egyptian lotus and the Victoria Re- gia, the largest leaves seemingly strong enough to bear the weight of a child. Close by were yellow and red wild lilies, pink marsh- mallow, with its delicate and profuse bloom, also grew to perfection, and could be seen three fields away. Here was the bright orange variety of milkweed as well as the silk-podded, which is today being experimented with along rubber producing lines, while black alder, dogwood, wild aster and Joe-pie-weed made a very thicket of blooms. When man digs deeply, he will find the word weed a misnomer. But this meadow was not all flowers; in one corner was a patch of horseradish and near the wall a surplus row of rhubarb, which in early spring we forced with a manure mulch and enclosed within headless and footless barrels. From that same State microbiologist we learned how apogamy or panthenogenesis of plant life was well exampled in the green algae that scummed a stagnant pool in a corner of our meadow, and could soon classify the interesting forms of oogamous, thallophytic plants which grew in abundance in odd corners, on dead stumps and in waste places. Bogland. In one corner of the meadow was a bog ; here the stream divided and trickled more slowly. A bogless farm may mean better farming, but to us it would have meant absence of the cheery peep of the rana, and conditions and varieties in plant life that mere money could not buy. Meat Eating Plants. At the edge of the little stream grew two kinds of meat eaters — the pitcher, whose victims were inveigled to a watery grave, and the hairy, viscous deluged sundews, whose gladsome hand of greet- ing swiftly turned to a throttling hand of death. 100 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE A Double Barreled Plant. "When one shot missed, the other hit," was the verdict over Lysimachia terrestris as it grew both tubers and seeds on its branches. In a dry season it propagated by seeds, in a wet one the bulbs which dropped to the ground grew as the seeds rotted. Preachers edged the bog, and their red fruit brightened minia- ture shaded glades. Scant plant food in the soil meant larger tubers and in some plants enlarged branch and rootlet stood for stored up sunshine, a sort of plant-reserve-bank, from which to draw sustenance in a measure absent from the sphagnum — mossy peat — which abounded in our bog. Arrowheads, walking ferns which really walked on land, cow lilies, smooth stemmed and leaved plants and sedge and bur-reeds glistened 'mid watery surroundings. Brakes spelled aban- donment, as attested by luxurious bracken growths in meadows left untouched by the ploughshare and death-dealing scythe. Batrachians. Here we took our first observation lesson of the tailless and tailed batrachians, from the near tadpole gill breathing stage to lung breathing four legged salamanders. The green frogs of the lily pads greened still brighter when herons essayed to "lift them," and the brown frog of the woods grew more woods}' still when avoiding its enemies — the boy that kept and studied turtles and bees took keen pleasure in testing the powers of the changing color frog from Bog- land. A real floral Jack-and-a-bean-stalk was the Polygonum Sacha- liense. Longfellow's first boy poem about Mr. Finney's turnip aptly applied to it, as it "grew and grew and grew behind the barn." Planted to screen a stercorary, perennial, spreading, and unkillable, the yard stick proved that from frost time to May fifth it had stalked upward exactly seven feet and tried its best, ere the summer waned, to punctuate the soil for a good square rod. Blooming in August, its white lacy blossoms — embowered banqueting corridors and halls for the bees — wave disdainfully above its lowly mission. Spreading roots are its greatest drawback. The historical camel that pushed its head within the tent flap was but a novice usurper beside Mr. Polygonum Sachaliense, late of Japan. Snakes. Snakes? Very few, and harmless at that. In twenty years we saw but one puff adder. Garter and milk snakes were often found, even in the boys' trousers pockets, and an occasional black snake scur- ried across our path. I recall abruptly halting one assassin red- handed who was gulping down a nestful of young robins. In throwing over a stone wall we once found their eggs — a half dozen NEVER CLOSED BIRD RESTAURANT 101 or more clammy, misshapen objects — with the young snakes just emerging. In fact, I helped the wriggling mass of snakedom cross the threshold of life one moment and, remembering the robin episode, in the next assisted its exit, but as vermin exterminators, today they are spared. More Trees and Shrubs. The dark foliage of the Japanese umbrella trees contrasted well with the lighter green of a grouped background of umbrella-headed catalpas that outlined the "heater piece" where two roadways met. Glinting through the silver and green were golden chained labur- nums, yellow jessamine, yellow currant, golden yew, golden hop tree, golden oak and the long list of yellows that glowed like bottled sunshine against the gray of overcast days. Japan, that master developer of Dame Nature's products, was our stand-by as exampled in lilac and quince, magnolia, sweet-scented syringa and delicate blooming deutzia, as well as the golden balled kerria, that has been brought to a brighter gold, more closely knit, and fuller rounded blossom under the skies of Japan. These and hundreds of other plants attest the painstaking propagation of centuries. No more attractive shrub blooms in that arboretum than the purple-fruited Callicarpa. Close to it was planted the straggling, silver leaved Baccharis, and back of the two a noble specimen of Nord- man's fir, whose silver-under-sided leaves dance in sunlight. The flaming red of the burning bush (the Euonymous or strawberry tree, one of the few plants that can squarely face salt water without cringing, but whose young life the scale dearly loves to throttle) is sandwiched beween flat-branched, hardy orange trees, full of yellowish uneatable fruit. Near it in season are the beautiful shell-like blossoms of the pearl bush, and forming part of the same background is the maiden-hair tree. The luxuriantly growing mulberry, whose prolific crop of fruit resembling the thimbleberry drops before it really ripens; the feathery tamarisk from India and Africa; the tropical-looking catalpa — Indian bean — whose leaves are late in coming and among the first to shrivel with frost, contrast well with a group of golden elders, in turn fronting the dark purple foliage of the copper plum, the Prunus pissardi, and close by it the rose of Sharon, one of the last plants to leave and bloom. Keyless and Never Closed Bird Restaurant. Here grew that shrub of shrubs, the sea buckthorn, Hippophae rahmnoides, of striking silver gray foliage, later its stems packed with orange colored berries that added many feathered visitors to our home bird colony. In one long stretch of the arboretum where the stroll path was most heavily screened we made a protected game preserve, a real bird paradise ; here were planted a wide gamut of 102 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE berry-bearing shrubs interspersed with a few suet decorated trees and bird fonts and in this kej'less and never closed bird restaurant the bursts of melodj' were most divine. "V'onder is a sturd}' trumpet vine, holding in its python grip the g^.arled and barnacled trunk of a dead cherry tree. Bitter- sweet and clematis lock arms in the clean-leaved, white flowering branches of the fringe tree, at whose base grows the silk tree, while near it are the Gymnocladus or Kentucky coffee and nettle trees. Backgrounding these are light green feathered larches, in iront the appropriately named smoke tree, and close by the lurid autumn leaved varnish tree, the Kolreuteria, and the rarely planted Stuartia, the American camellia or tea plant. Silverthorns, hawthorns and thorn-apples a-plenty backed the indigo shrub. The flowering almond, fronted by great masses of garden pinks, contrasted with the glorious yellow coreopsis, while mock orange, bladder nut and New Jersey teas were also in evidence. The pro-trate cj'press and the little English yews stood side by side. Neces- sarily, European yews in our young country are small — it takes hundreds of years to grow the mightiest and sturdiest, as exampled in the eleven hundred year old yew of Ripon Abbey, the epitome of strength and longevity. Ours were barely four feet high.*" "Till fell the frost from clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on man.'' In spite of the rare beauty of the numberless varieties of golden rod that brightened field and hillside, and later the shell-like nodding heads of cosmos, a true frost flower, the swirl of feathery chr\'san- themum, and the late bloom of wistaria and clematis Jackmanni, their coming as a near winter harbinger was a cloud over our Garden of Eden. Try-Out Nursery. In the vegetable garden was a try-out nursery where novelties were grown. Here were new melons, black sweet corn, a new variety of popcorn to gladden and shorten the long winter evenings, gourds of bright color and odd form, — one variety in square surface area rivaling our prize pumpkin, and scores of other freaks (some of them true horticultural pedants) which, though purchased with wonderful promises, often failed to live up to the farmer's past stand-bys. I recollect, however, some corn stalks sixteen feet higli, selected from the twenty-acre field, that gained honorable mention at the County Fair. We grew sweet potatoes of large size but small flavor, and in our own biased opinion graduated many a Nestor in the agricultural world, but in time crucible tests often revealed a dunce who flunked and slipped into oblivion. Among other fruits was a French straw- "-J''The American sequoia outdistanci's hy full two score centuries England's venerable yew. Science states there are today living specimens of the California sequoias that were old trees before the pyramids were built. TRY-OUT NURSERY 103 berry that ripens in the fall, and has a delicious wild strawberry flavor. The crop was larger when we destroyed the June blooms. Here also were tested some of the seeds franked to us by our Congressman each spring — in fact, the collection of both flower and vegetable seeds furnished free by the Government made quite a garden. Odd hours grew into years of painstaking search before all these plants had been found and named, but they finally stood on the record book of the arboretum and lived out their li^-es in fields, woods, copse, hedgerow and meadow, save when the brush fire got beyond control, as it sometimes did in spite of the cedar bush beating given to keep it within bounds, or the knife of the mower transferred the floral harvest of bloom to the hay mow, or the cattle nipped the bud- ding blossoms. From the green hills of Vermont, at the base of Mt. Mansfield, we freighted two large boxes of trailing arbutus, with a goodly quantity of the soil in which they grew. These were planted in a grove of Austrian pines, protected from our roving cattle, and it was always a joyous discovery to find them peeping through the late spring snows. As the seckle is the generally accepted standard of flavor in the pear kingdom, the arbutus, "the darling of the forest," should be the standard of fragrance in the world of flowers. Ere the plant fever developed and before that rural instinct dormant in all mankind had become a lining thing, the choicest shrubs meant to me only a bit of attractive color or graceful form, hence, I rarely grew impatient over some city guest's patronizing and flippant comment: "Yes, it's beautiful, but isn't it a lot of care?" and five minutes after the remark the visitor couldn't recall any detail of that which was such an expression of the Divine as to be fit to embower the gates of Paradise. My frequent panacea for outraged feelings was to lash the offenders unmercifully with a torrent of easily acquired botanical names such as Taxodium distichum, or Bambusa metake, but I soon reverted to the normal habit of calling an Aralia spinosa a Hercules club or a Viburnum plicatum a Japanese snowball, realizing that I had in the past been a greater ingrate and a grosser culprit than my guest. The arboretum required careful planning, but it paid, for, aside from the ioy of accomplishment, it made a connecting link between the house and grounds, gi\'ing an air of permanence and completeness to the entire development. Moving Day. Moving day had now arrived for the farm house. "Not good enough for this particular site, but very good for some other near by," was the verdict of the jury, and horse, block and windlass, roller, 104 HO IV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE plank, and guy moved it a foot at a time over the fourteen hundred feet traveled to reach its new homesite. With its removal the sun of our tiventy year farming day sank beneath the horizon, and man s final estate as described in the line, "we shall soon be fogies," began to cast faintly outlined shadows the day we gave up the farm. Farmers Versus Commuters. While raising corn for the silo, we were raising roof-trees for the commuter, and in the next hundred pages is a record of how we worked out the farm problem into the villa community, made easier by the fact that the roads in Hillcrest Manor closely articu- lated with various highways. HILLTOP 105 CHAPTER IV. Hilltop— Stony Crest — The Gables — Buexa Vista — Hill- crest House — Storm King — Stonehenge — Sky Rock — Briercliff — Croftleigh House — Cliffmont — Breezemont — Ledges — Drachenfels — Island House — Cross\vays — Red Towers. THE first house with which I changed the skj'-line of the rough Connecticut farm was Hilltop, two large stone chimneys its main motif. Hilltop was built before the advent in numbers . in this country of the skilled Italian stone chimney mason, who, while often moving slowly, rarely picks up the wrong stone. I finally found a native boss mason willing to tackle the job. The chimneys, built of selected lichen-covered stones, both within and without, grew fast, and with them the house, of plain but strong design. Three large rooms lined toward the south, with the two exterior chimneys of field stone equidistant from each end. The stair hall was thrown toward the north in a semi-ell, and kitchen in the same manner at the other end, connected by a columned, palm-decorated one-story corridor. On the second floor bedrooms were all on the south and a well ventilated and lighted hall on the north. That roof of roofs hilltop. 106 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 01 < ' A ' I >r J .... J ^ ■' 11 — ■ i " HEEe: H!LI,CRE5T HOV5B rmiSHED THIOIOLKSS AND TREED HILLTOP. JVILir CHLOROPHYLL DID IN EIGHT YEJRS 107 STOHYCRE^T EICiHT TEARS TREE AM) SHRUB GROWTH. 108 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 5T0nYCRE5T ■J'lll-: AliiiiTIoN Til STc_li\'VCKI-;ST. FLOOR PLANS OF OUR BEST lOQ HILLCHD5T H0U5E mrst flooe t C ■ tjvi -I CUO MOST PRACTlCfi.1. r J U I ^^■-r-; J \ 3T0t1TCRE5T Pit -AK r_|k^ Qn "L, iil: iECOnH STOEV PLWR PLAH OF BUBriA VISTA'S THE BIG FOUR. 110 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE for space, the g;ambrel, gave large attic rooms. Yes, Hilltop, the first modern house in Hillcrest Manor, in presence and convenience was called a success. Snap Shots of Building Progress. Rarely have I built without taking photographs at different stages, making important data for future reference. First, the bare site, then, in natural sequence, the hole in the ground, the stoned- up cellar, upright corner posts, and so on to the completed dwelling, and year after year the increased tree and shrub growth, with each photograph usually taken in scale with some well known object as man, dog, or horse. STONYCREST. After Hilltop came Stonycrest, whose roof outline formed one of its several motifs.* The stone entasis foundation, the big sheets of glass from floor to door and window top, windows that occupied almost the entire ends of the rooms, and the deeply recessed inglenook two steps below the hall with its tiled floor in which was inset a lion rampant, were some of its features. In the chimney centre was a colored, leaded elass window necessitating a tlouble fireplace flue ; had it faced the hills it would have been of clear plate glass. Box windows extended up into the partitions in low studded rooms, allowing larger view panes. ■■The original plan cailej for an arched cnrridor, connecting stable and house, as shown on page 108. UTILIZING STONE WALLS 111 EETA1L5 IN. THE BV!i,Tirac, OF STONY CRE.t>T DETAILS IN THE BUILDING CiP STOXYOREST. 112 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE IT CREW OUT OF THE dlTF SITE •tBDEHA VISTAB THE HOUSE THAT SPANNED A CITY BLOCK. PREVENTION OF VERANDA DECAY 113 Translucent glass formed the risers in outside steps as well as back stair flight, flooding the basement and cellar with light, an excusable bit of commercialism. Heavy twenty-four inch fluted columns flanked the entrance hall on either side, and still other features were a niched window on the stairs, the great south plant window with curved top transom of stained leaded glass, and oaken carved griffins — a copy of those designed by Richardson for the library building m Burlington, Vermont — ornamenting the front door lintel. But the prevailing exterior motif was the roof, that with curve and mitred soffit, peak and dormers, tried both purse and patience. As I remember it, six carpenters worked six weeks to close in and finish that roof in all its details, but it was generally conceded to be a thing of beauty. The entrance posts built of big boulders were capped by rough stone laid in basket form for flowering plants, and fitted with gal- vanized iron drainage pipes.* Prevention of Veranda Decay. To dispose of rain water on the piazza a strip of ten-incli-cop- per flashing fastened with copper nails at the edge of piazza floor, formed a slightly inclined gutter, its outer edge cemented into the stone veranda rail as the stone was being laid up and connected with spouts leading into blind drains. This prevented decay in floor and beams and solved the annoying veranda water-drip problem when the veranda abuts against a solid stone railing. The bulkhead cellar doors of wired glass were screened and protected from uncontrolled grass or brush fires by plant-decorated ramparts of rustic-laid-up stones. Twice we lost valuable buildings through burnings-over care- lesslv handled. THE GABtES ■■-'Nine hundred dollars was the cose of the posts and short fences which joined them and in three years low evergreens and vines completely concealed their contours Cheap but sub- stantial boulder posts screened with vines would have answered as well. 114 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE PASTIME. JUm LABOR OIT THS. EKBM A \\'I|in: IIANGR IN FARM LIFE. LEAF-ROOFED VERANDA CEILING 115 A short thousand feet, and we stand on the wide veranda of a long, low villa. "The Gables" featured a dozen outside balconies. Hall, parlor and dining room were on the ground floor as well as the kitchen extension which joined the dining room by a long butler's pantry. '\'es, it was winged, and its isolation meant freedom from clatter, heat, and odors. Overhead were servants' rooms, bath, house-maids' sink room, etc., and laundry and cellar beneath. The second floor had many connecting rooms, and increased area was obtained by building the front line of the house over the fifteen foot veranda, all overhang being thoroughlj? deadened. Third floor rooms were made unusually cool by the high studded loft with three ventilating windows hinged from the bottom to keep out rain. These opened inward, were chain-hung at top and proved practical ventilators. Leaf-Roofed Veranda Ceiling. The ampelopsis has taken possession of the veranda ceiling, and one sits beneath a leafy canopy, while English ivy keeps the north stone posts green all the year. As the ceiling boards will last at least ten years and possibly twenty and can then be renewed, the unique beauty of this verdure-bowered ceiling made the doing worth while. Occasional sprinkhng with insecticide downed fly, mosquito and spider. An improvement would be an indestructible cement ceiling. All balconies are well flashed, canvas-covered and thor- oughly painted. Door sills are sharply sloped and have triple rab- bets. A poorly built balcony invariably leaks and is a large factor in falling ceilings and stained walls, and window frames about caps and sills need special flashing and close jointure. Open and roofed verandas extend on four sides of The Gables, and include a servants' porch broad enough for an outdoor dining room at the rear of the house, well screened from the front entrance. In Gables we succumbed to the arguments of the wall- paper salesman, only to find that sand-finished walls mtended for paint or muresco and stencil treatment rebel when papered. Fall winds sweeping through open doors and windows stripped off roses, pansies, and nasturtiums by the j'ard. Buena Vista. Here is shown Buena Vista, which, with its length of 228 feet, stretches a full city block. It is built to fit the contour of the ground. When I first bought the farm and named it Hillcrest, I walked out on these ledges and planned to sometime tie the lichen-covered stone outcroppings together with a ^Moorish castle. After years of wait- 116 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE BUEIIAVISTAE. iOUTH AHD VmST TROnX THE NORTH FBOHT THE MOORISH C\STLE. THJT SIREN INFECTED ORCHARD \\1 THAT ROOF. lis HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE ing and a score of months of continuous labor the castle, with stucco sides, and roof and towers of tile, at last crowned the hill, welcoming guests and owner through archway, up the broad stairway, and into its hospitable halls. Extravagance in paneled wainscot and beamed ceiling ran riot, as in leaded lights, arch-windowed turrets, and the copper-flashed, tiled roof, viewed from the lookout of which Buena Vista seemed like a miniature citv. BUENA VISTA. I believe that Tennyson, with his love for tile, as against "slated ugliness," would have appreciated that roof, though it will be decades before it takes on its northern slope the moss-grown shades that pleased the poet. One can, of course, use tile in much less glaring colors, and in so doing span a century. In Buena Vista were picture windows so large and heavy that they could not be conveniently opened, a remembered lesson to me. When I again tackled 8x8 foot picture windows they swung on pivots inserted in top and bottom or on either side. Fortunately, windows were so numerous in Buena Vista that stagnant air was unknown. Hardware in the reception room was gold plated ; this was not extravagant and never needed polishing. Yes, it's a scrawny, uninteresting apple orchard, but you will see how in landscaping the east side of Hillcrest House, I used these old apple trees as a foil to the big building. THE STONE FRAMED MOORISH CASTLE 119 H1L.LCRE5T HOUSB THE SAST EHTRAMCE A STONE FRAMED LANDSCAPE. 120 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE The Siren in the Apple Blossom. The amateur farmer greets an apple orchard with open arms, looking upon it as the sure means of paying the hired man, possibly carrying part of the interest on the bank mortgage, and giving a severe drubbing to the wolf that stands ever at the door of man's domicile. His dream of a home embowered in apple blossoms gives him patience and courage to put up with the old house a while longer, and tends to dissipate the occasional depression caused by muddy roads, delayed trains, the unreason of farm help, and the myriad difficulties that daily dog the steps of him who, if undeveloped, cannot throttle disappointment or rise above vexatious surroundings. So the apple- THE SITE OF HILLCREST HOUSE AS IT LOOKED BEFORE WE DUG THE CELLAR blossom-dream lures him on until he awakens to realize that apple blossoms last but one week of the fifty-two, that insects and fungi blight and disfigure, that a lawn is impossible, as grass grows unevenly and sparsely under the wide-spreading branches of apple trees whose trunks often anirle most ungracci idly , and that gener- ally both view and breeze are shut out by their intertwined branches. In a word, if house and grounds are to be made attracti\e to the owner, the axe must be his best friend. Apple trees out of place are an aggravation, but it takes more courage to obviate the difficulty than was shown by "The Little Minister," who, spite of the fact KINGSHIP OF LIVING 121 that the nearness of the cherry tree to his house menaced botli health and comfort, followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, the old curate, and "never could find the axe." ^^ l^siiB 'sm "niLL(.T:r:sT iiou^k Hillcrest Hall and the Kingship of Living. It's a long stride from the base of Hillcrest House to the lookout that crowns its ridge, from which is an extended view of land and sea. Truly one feels the kingship of living more keenly from house or mountain top, and even in lowly cabin instincti\ely searches for a place on the roof from which to breathe air that does not hug too closely the dusty highway. A rare building was the big house. The oaken staircase of steamer stair design had a wide single flight to a landing lighted by a broad window of Tiffany sta'ned glass, then divided into two separ- ate flights. Stair rail was in keeping with the oak paneled hall, while string piece and balustrade were ornamented with metal beading. The dining room, 20 x 30 feet, with doors at either end, led on the east to a tiled and fountained court and on the west to a conservatory. The ebonized antique oak trim increased its apparent size, especially as main windows were at each end. The butler's pantiy was 8x25 feet, and stairs therefrom led to the servants' suites in the ell. Drawing room was in bird's-ej^e maple, with stained glass leaded transoms in the broad-seated bay, representing the four seasons 122 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE of an apple orchard ; blossoming tree, half-grown fruit, matured apple crop, and snow-laden boughs. Mantel face and hearth were onyx with shelf supported by ormolu or mosaic gold brackets and lower half of the broad window opening on veranda, next to a side door screened with translucent leaded glass. Hillcrest Hall towered four stories, and required a plot of land more than one hundred by two hundred and twenty-five feet to com- pass its angles and curves. There were at least two hundred win- dows. It represented both joy and worry in large measure, and I grayed a bit during its building. Fireproof Den. Adjoining the library was a fireproof den of iron, brick, and cement, with two air-spaced metal doors, iron shuttered and barred windows, and a wide fireplace. Under this den was a large stone walled room, its sides lined with asbestos covered metal shelves, making an ideal filing room with fireplace ventilation. On the second floor were the usual half dozen bathrooms, tiled to the ceiling, and masters' bedrooms, both with and without bal- conies, dressing rooms with mirror doors, and everj'where a super- abundance of large closets. The billiard room windows on the third floor overlooked thirty miles of Sound and country. Wall decorations were pictures of hunt- ing, yachting, fencing, and other sports. Pistol Gallery. Here was a Japanese room with lanterned, divaned and draped cosy corner, and leading therefrom a well ventilated pistol gallery, where bullets harmlessly impinged against the massive stone chimney breast. In the centre of this long corridor-like room stood a rowing machine. A large linen and a cedar closet, the former having tivo full sized doors, completed this story. On the fourth floor were housed the personal attendants of guests, distinct from house servants' quarters in the kitchen ell. Gym. in the Open. 0\er the arched and gargoyled porte cochere, screened by window boxes filled in summer with flowering plants and in winter with evergreens pruned in curves, is an outdoor canvas-floored gym- nasium, equipped with trapeze, punching bags and other parapher- nalia to be used for that few moments' morning exercise in the open that fills the lungs, develops the muscles, straightens the form, and ON THE Sr(JCK!< 123 EACH STEP AI1D CAP A SmGLB ST0I1& THE BOLD BALB SITE- RUGGED STONE AVORK. 124 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE makes the blood surge and tingle, putting one in fine fettle for wrestling with the day's work. The Rest Room. Over the coachman's nook on the same floor is a writing or rest room with fireplace, reached from the house by the pergolad outdoor gym., a place to pull tired nerves into alignment, a room theoretically a luxury, but in reality a necessity. Porte Cochere Fireplace. Supporting the portals of Hillcrest House were grouped a half score of massive stone arches, framing a broad porch room, as shown in the accompanying photographs, from which a large area of countryside is visible. At the outer side of the porte cochere was built a high arched inglenook with a six foot wide stone fireplace, stone settles and recessed windows, intended as a waiting shelter for those who serve. Folk-lore has it that during the Revolution the Father of our Country was concealed over night in a cave less than three miles across lots from Hillcrest Manor. Whether the statement is true or false, its underlying sentiment coupled with our require- ments caused us to transport by a double yoke of cattle a flat stone from the mouth of this cave to the fireplace-ingle in the coachman's nook, where today it serves as a settle as it may have served our first president. Hero of New England's Dark Day. We are on historic ground, for on the slope of the hill yonder lived Abraham Davenport, that hero who, when New Eng- land's dark day to the Puritan mind threatened the wrath of God, rose amid his trembling fellow legislators in the council hall at Hart- ford and in the words of New England's poet of the hills said : 'Let God do His work, we will do ours; Bring in the candles.' .... A witness to the ages as they pass That simple duty has no place for fear." Putnam's Ride. Across the valley we see Put's Hill, down which General Israel Putnam was pictured in our school books as recklessly urging his galloping steed while the pursuing English halted at the edge of the steep declivity. In the foreground is the plain 'cross which he dashed to safety, while just west of the hill is the stone chimney of the inn where he was eating when interrupted by his unwelcome callers. We are also but a short mile from Fort Nonsense, thrown up by the same rash and impetuous Putnam in face of queriilous criti- cism on account of its useless location. GJRDENS OF HILLCREST HOUSE 125 C-iAHDETlS i HILLCREST HOUSE ^VELL-HOUSE, PERGOLA AND GREENHOUSE. 126 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE SWARIIid THE SILLS OF HttlCKEST HOVSB ^BKMIHG, THE VEBMOIA EOOF ^ -,"•■■ ,'■■"< j^v«-4«»^^2^ ^ r^ ?p^ ■ - S ffp r^ x>i;t;rr'--'*i'*^ ^u:i. -U "'an' THE SKELETOH m THE VERKHBA. WJSHIHC THE -WORK THp; BUILDING OF THIO BIG HOUSE. From Foundation Upward. STONE JND WOOD SKELETONS 127 ARCH AN'D ARCH AXD ARCH. 128 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE iAME EliTRAIiCB TMVnnTEC e-jt mot in DisconTEM-i THE ENTRANCE TO HILLCREST FARM AND MANOR. BARE GROUND TO DENSE FOLIAGE 12S The House of the Cross. The cross was used as a motif in the building of Storm King, the roof of the porte cochere extending far enough beyond the house to form an outdoor lounging room, or ombra, entirely separate from the main building which is planned to throw the four wings of the cross into one large fountain-centred room. The manner of lighting the third story rooms with side slitling windows under the wide over- hang left an unbroken roof line, much to the joy of any architect visitor, though it circumscribed the view. The clapboards with which Storm King is sided were mitred instead of abutting against a corner board. Pompeiian Fountain Under the porte cochere and against the side of the ombra was placed a counterpart of one of the drinking fountains unearthed at Pompeii, in which one sees the depression worn in the stone two thousand years ago by the hand of the passer-by as he leaned against it while slaking his thirst. In the tower a broad winding stairway followed the circu- lar sides to the top, a somewhat difficult piece of work, especially the hand rail. STORM KING. Crowning a high ridge, its broad measurements and outlying wings making it stolidly indifferent to storms that rack and even rock the ordinary house, Storm King appeared as firm as its impreg- nable foundation, save when a severe thunder storm vibrated the granite ledges. The Cromlech Stone. Directly opposite Storm King is Stonehenge, that seems to grow from the ledge. Centreing the lawn is a rough bouldered flat-topped stone similar to those strange altars that once served for Druidical 130 HOJV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE rites and sacrifices tiiat make us moderns shudder at the horrible unaccountable cruelty of forbears — thank God — ages remo\'ed. The big arched entrance is half barricaded by a low, stone-capped wall, leaving ample space to enter the vestibule behind it, the design filched from Phillips Brooks' house in Boston. Overhead high stained glass windows are framed in the stones. Opening a heavy oak- battened, iron-studded door, one enters a small but lofty vaulted hall. The dining room is on the same level. It is sixteen feet to the beamed ceiling formed by the second story 4x12 surfaced floor tim- bers. This manner of making a beamed ceiling demands air spacing and very thick deadening to eliminate overhead noise. STOXEHEXGE. Dining Room on New Lines. Few houses at tiricc the cost have as fine a dining room as "Stone- henge," whose high ceiling admits of the adjoining space being cut into two seven-foot rooms on different levels. One of these leading from the dining room forms a cosy inglenook, its red leather trimmed settles binlt each side the fireplace standing out in baronial richness against the ebonized wood. The other adjoining room is the butler's pantry and over both a mezzanine floor, making an ideal den but necessarily with a low seven-foot ceiling. On the south side of the dining room French windows open- ing to the floor lead to a sheltered outdoor breakfast room and semi-conservatory. On the west o\er the low broad ebonized sideboard are especially designed leaded windows through which streams \ari-col()red light, while on the east is a door\\a\ of the unusual lnif;ht »l loiirwcii liit. tapestry draped, gi\ing com- manding presence ; in fact, any room rightly located is made impres- si\'e without extra cost by an unusually ///;'■/; porticrcrl il'toricax. DINING ROOM ON NEW LINES BRIERCLIFF j.poj^ pj_^ jj^^j ahb m all seasoms 131 a.>^ - ii=Tf BRIER CLIJ'F FROM ALL RCilXTS. 132 HOiV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE In the side wall to the left of hall entrance is a projecting oriel window connecting library' and dining room, and on the north, as we have seen, over inglenook and butler's pantry, the little den whose swinging casements of leaded glass open near ceiling height into the dining room. Sky Rock. Just beyond Stonehenge and northwest of Storm King stands Sky Rock. Its high clifi foundations and turreted outline silhouetted 'gainst the sky line make it true to name, fitting the cragged site as a long low building fits a plain. The veranda view compasses a wildness of forest and ravine that belong to a wilderness rather than to a property within one hour of New York City. From the roof lookout is an unobstructed horizon view. A desirable motif for a country house is a ten-foot wide fireplace opening as seen in Sky Rock. The entrance hall is 20x30 feet, with dining room a close second in size. One side of the latter is baj'ed, overlooking forest and valley, through which winds a silver-threaded river, merging into the waters of Long Island Sound. In the distance are the blue-hazed sand banks of Oj'ster Bay. Settle in Stone Ledge. A broad entrance porch fronts the cliff on the west. In it is a settle cut in the stone ledge on which Sky Rock is built. Cement steps from the porch lead upward to an iron-banded-donjon gate. Foot pressure on either metal door mat or old fashioned scraper starts the clanging of a gong that doubtless in feudal times called many a doughty warrior to don gasket and breastplate to repel invaders, but today answering that summons, the gate swings wide to greet the arriving guest, who steps into an ideal porch room, one of the half dozen motifs that inspired the building of Sky Rock. The marquise is formed by a cun-ed extension of the platform of the porch room, which is about 25x30 feet. Densely headed rock maples and tall walnuts bar the western sun. Domed Hall. From the porch a wide Colonial door opens to the living room from which in turn three steps lead to a broad stair landing, holding a piano, a couch and a couple of chairs. On the west side of this landing are two long leaded windows, each four by twelve feet, while directly opposite is a stairway six feet in width leading to a second story, circular, vaulted hall twelve feet in diameter with coved ceiling, centreing in a dome of colored glass. Inset in the floor above is a sheet of translucent, extra heavy, floor wire glass. This entrance hall is pierced by six doors and connects with a nine foot wide galleried A ROUND DINING ROOM 133 hall with barreled ceiling. Opening therefrom are the sleeping rooms. The halls are unusual, but considered a success, and form one of the motifs of Sky Rock. A basement and first story conservatory and fountain for the southeast corner I never built. Leading from the living room and wide veranda, they would form a feature well worth adding. On the south wall was placed a motto-circled sun dial. BRIEIl CLIFF. Here is "Brier Cliff," riveted so closely to the ledge as to seem part of it. The veranda built on three sides narrows under the porte cochere on the front and extends to a belvedere on the west. A Round Dining Room.'^- Brier Clii? has stone fireplaces, French windows and balconies on three stories, and a circular dining room, with curbed bay on the west, opening to the veranda, while the duplicate bay on the east has two mirror doors, reflecting the woods and the ravine gorge through which plunges the river, whose swirling current has worn its way deep into the rock. The steep sides (jf the ravine are held in place by lofty evergreens, tall walnuts and enormous boulders, some of which make ca\es within the rough-edged, lichen-co\ered ledges, while others are strewn in wild confusion along the rugged sides and in the river bed, forming what we called Ausable Chasm, Junior. It's a wild forest scene from the west \'eranda of Brier Cliff. Nearh" all rooms are corner rooms, with broad vistas from e^'erv window. The centre space in the attic is used as a billiard hall, with balconies built over the \-alley. There are large rooms at either end. Climbing still another stairway, one enters the tower lookout, commanding the horizon on all sides. North, south, and east are landscaped villas, while on the west is a forest wilderness. ■■■■In another house an ellipnc dining room gave better proportions, the waste corners utilized in adioining room- and hall as closets 134 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE The Crow's Nest in the Hemlock. On the ravine side is a firmly built platform half way up the trunk of a big hemlock, reached by a railed step-ladder, forming a veritable crow's nest among the feathery boughs. Here the tune of the hemlock's faithful branches, "green not alone in summer time, but in the winter frost and rime" brings rest and inspiration. Croftleigh House with its Galleried Veranda. A few steps from Brier Cliff stands one of the most enjoyable houses in Hillcrest Manor. Croftleigh House has two pronounced CROFTLEIGH HOUSE. motifs that at once stamp it as out of the ordinary. One is the galleried veranda, projecting about sixty feet from the southwest corner of the house, and ending in a big porch room supported by stone posts. This room overlooks the same charming valley, threaded by the same silver stream, its beauty and utility greatly enhanced by separation from the house, standing as it does so that breezes reach it from all sides. Still farther away one sees the Sound and the sand bluffs of Long Island. Feature Levels. The second and interior motif is a combination of rooms at slight- ly different levels. North of the entrance hall three steps lead down- ward to the dining room and three steps under the large stair-land- ing bring one to the rear hall door leading to the east \eranda. Open- ing this and the front door ventilates the entire house. Hall, dining room and stairs are Colonial, with white enamel finish ; the stair rail of mahogany. The broad landing w ith curved front liolds a piano and a grandfather's clock, and over it is a three THE IDEAL SUITE 135 sectioned, leaded, bayed window with arched head, to ceiling height, its delicate tracery of design showing through lacy curtains that break the glare of the eastern sun. On the north side of the dining room, midway between floor and ceiling, leaded casements light the little den reached from a back stair landing practically in the same way as in Stonehenge, making a wide musicians' balcony. Over the dining room mantel, high in the brick chimney, is a niche with leaded design in clear glass, where rare bric-a-brac can be displayed. The Ideal Suite. Croftleigh had one especially large double bedroom with five exclamation points — exclamations synonyming view, size, glorious sunshine, air, and acme of comfort. When visitors crossed its thresh- old, it was only a question which point was voiced loudest or first. This room extended the entire width of the house — some fifty-five feet — and faced the south, with an horizon view of hill, vale, meadow, and Long Island Sound, fringed in the distance by the sand bluffs of Oyster Bay. The eastern outlook embraced vineyards, orchards, sloping hillside, flower and vegetable garden, field and pasture land, and the details of husbandry that make for joy as well as utility in country living, while on the west, barring a couple of extensive country homes, lay a wilderness of forest and stream, with broad vistas beyond. In the boudoir portion of this ideal room, separated by grille and column from the main room, was a generous fireplace. The bedroom end connected with a completely appointed tiled bathroom and a sleeping porch 8x 15 faced the southwest. The fourth compass point was compassed by a projecting bay. CLIFFMONT. 136 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE CLIFFMOnT FRAMIHG AMD -p-miSHmG SHAriNG UP SQUARED UGLINESS. OUTLOOK FROM THE FARM 137' HILLCREST AND ONE NEAR NEIGHBOR. 138 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE One of the motifs of Cliffmont, whose grounds join those of Brier Cliff, is the outdoor dining room reached through the living room, and well shaded by trees. The railed platform on which it is built is protected by an awning and forms the roof of the garage. Cliffmont boasts an exceptionally large lookout. The stairs climb upward at the back of the chimney from the living room, and are side-settled at newel post. In Cliffmont, as in several of the other houses, a boudoir suite, with its connecting rooms which make ideal living, occupies the entire south front of the second story, with south, east, and west windows. In the sitting room end, which is separated by columns, is a fireplace and inglenook, settled and grilled. A connecting bathroom forms the third member of the suite. BREEZEMONT. Misleading 20 x 30 foot Rooms. Breezemont in plan and location justifies its name. It has one of the 20x30 foot living rooms that I have frequenth' built, but no two of which looked the same size, owing to difference in height, location, style, decoration and furnishing, wliich if arranged with "malice aforethought" can be made to increase the apparent size of a room twenty-fi\'e per cent. Balconies, windows and well-lighted bedrooms are among the features of Breezemont, the largest bedroom facmg all points of the compass h\ means of a windowed alcove. Tree Basket Nest. A big buttonwood tree grows through the centre of the veranda floor, and high in its branches is chain-hung a strongly framed, wire basket-nest large enough for a children's playhouse. MISLEADING 20 x 30 FOOT ROOMS 139 1 I ( >M 111 ILl\r T(l FINISH. 140 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Ledges, an Eny;lish house built around a 12x12 foot stone chimne\' stack, with quaint stair tower, big arched and stone-settled fireplaces, beamed ceilings and timbered and stuccoed interior as well as exterior walls, is unusual, perched on a cliff overlooking a steep, wooded incline, fretted at its base by rock-strewn rapids of the swirl- ing river. LEDGES. Norman Tower. In Norman tower are set the slit windows of mediaeval times, through which feudal lords and their retainers repelled with javelin and bow-gun invading hordes. Before speeding northward to Drachenfels, that house of mighty spaces built in the centre of a rare. Long Island Sound-bordered woodland, and ere we leave the imdulating meadows and pic- turesque wooded knolls of Hillcrest Manor, we will bid adieu to the patriarch of this group, the old farm house that stood there before swamps were leclaimed and the wilderness of bramble and brier made to blossom as the rose; when the arable land was sunply potato patches, corn, and hay fields instead of orchards, vineyards, Colonial and Italian gardens, and country villas. In the houses in Hillcrest Manor I tested various modes of con- struction ; a log slabbed building; an odd design in roofing tile; stucco in its varied forms, plastered on either wooden or steel lathing; laying clapboards rough side out and staining as we do shingles; siding with lapped white wood boards twche inches wide, mitred at the cor- ners; belting side walls with shingle laths over clapboards; shingles A XORMJX TOlf'ER 141 THE MEDIAEVAL ?LIT WIKOOW J ' WHERE SOME OF THE STONE WALLS LANDED. 142 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE laid with different weatherage, seven coursed shingle roofs lapped in curves to imitate thatch ; tile-hipped and tile-ridged shingle roofs, and a half height shingled veranda rail, topped with low wooden paling; novelty' siding on outbuildings or battens with one side nail- ing and slip joint to prevent splitting, as well as blocked cement, hollow brick and terra cotta construction and veneered air-spaced brick, tearing out again where the effect failed in harmony and the result was unsatisfactory. During these building years we turned nature topsy-turvy — at least, so said the farmer's sons who, after a twenty-year absence, revisited their birthplace. The Adirondacks at the City's Threshold. Within an hour's drive or a fifteen minutes' motor trip from Hillcrest Manor, a rough, wooded tract edges on one side a small lake, on the other the Sound. Through this tract was built a winding road, fringed by white oak, chestnut, cedar, hemlock, birch and beech, leading to the Sound. It is like a bit of the Adirondacks at the city's threshold and includes two verdure-crowned, rock-edged islands, deep ravines and wooded knolls, through which wind two miles of roadwav. Here we built Drachenfels. ^ )^^4j^R"^_^_^\>y SM m -1: ■ i:^» *fe^-^" ■."**« ■■■^ .'. ' .:;:' '":-' iB«MrSi>:;;i^^Pi^^S^ DRACHENFELS. The house itself is baronial in appointments and decorations. A steep drivewa)' leads to a porte cochere on the east. The oaken door is six feet wide, with hea\y non hmges and a knocker from an ancient castle on the Rliine. Stepping through the diii)rwa\ , one stands in a beamed and columned hall of 20 x 40 feet, witli a thirteen foot ceiling. The tweK-e f(]()t wide mahogany staircase flanked by ADIROl^DACKS AT THE CITY'S THRESHOLD 143 HOW WE TKAT15F0RMED DULL nORTH LIGHT -° SUIiLlGHT THE VmDOVr t..t=\cvLV ,5iyTj>:;n FCTT souADt on THE STAIFi THE.VU1DmC, STAIR MANORIAL AND IX SOME FEATURES BARONIAL. "144 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Ionic columns leads to a stair landing twenty feet in length with a ceiling forty feet high, wainscoted and settled, in whose wall is a sixteen foot square concave window of green and golden leaded glass, colors which swing the compass from north to south. Its form makes it appear six feet higher than its width, a point we remem- bered in building other concave windows. A broad columned ■ entrance hall opens on the west to a veranda twenty feet wide. The Colonial dining room, 20 x 30 has wide columned alcove window and mahogany beamed ceiling. All mantels are high, wide, and deep ; one marble, others mahogany, gilded wood, or white enamel finish in keeping with the rooms. French windows open from parlor to porch, showing in their curved muntins a touch of Versailles. The veranda has an excep- tionally low stone rail, increased to normal height by boxes of plants. Posts are unusual, as seen in the photograph, with tops broader than bases — seemingly too slender at the bottom, but for the enlarging stone support which is a foot or two above the low stone rail. They are of chestnut plank built about a heavy chestnut centre, the forty-two members of each post-shell held together as hard .and fast as iron can band them. A Trussed Transom. Twin picture windows of one sheet of plate glass at the west end of both the long parlor and library are each nine feet wide and six feet high. A thirteen foot ceiling allows of leaded light transoms, but the wooden parting strip is barely two inches wide, and when they were first placed a gale threatened to dash the whole front to the floor. The problem was solved \vith a two-inch truss-iron set edgewise laid closely against each side of the lock-rail its full length within and without. It could not be beaten in with a sledge hammer as far as the parting strip is concerned. The library has mahogany book-cases, high columned mantel, wide window settles, and a big observatory window with leaded transom. Under the stair landing is a butler's pantry with three divi- sioned sink of planished copper to avoid dish breaking. It extends the length of the three windows, which thoroughly light this impor- tant room. An easy flight of basement stairs brings us to the tarred and cemented cellar blasted from the ledge. It is and has always been a stranger to moisture, except as the area entrance was flooded before we bricked and drained it, and built an overhead wire-glass, light giving bulkhead roof that shoots the water where it belongs, into ■cobbled gutter and thence to flower garden and lawn. The stone walled basement extends under the entire house, and contains kitchen. SiriNGING THE COMPASS 145 THE TWELVE FOOT VHDE iTAIR THE TWEL\-E FOOT STAIR. 146 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE laundry, man's room, refrigerator and storerooms, shower room for the athlete, tool room and billiard room, the latter with arched and settled stone fireplace that would rouse to the joy of living the most phlegmatic and pessimistic skeptic or indifferent stupid tyke. Returning to the first floor, one passes under the big cement- sheathed and terra cotta fire-protected steel I-beams that stiffen the house immensely and carry the north side of the hall, and climbs the broad stairs to the 20x40 foot second story hall, which, wainscoted and beamed, forms a vaulted room from which tran- somed French windows lead to the west balcony. In the forty-foot staircase tower, half way to the third floor the flight is broken by a projecting mahogany railed balcony which seems suspended in mid-air. The stair turns and lands between columns on the third floor, where are rooms and baths for guests. There is a fourth floor for servants and above that the lookout. All bathrooms are tiled, fixtures of the best, properly back-aired, and with chimney ventilation. Hanging Balcony. Scant head room under the curved balcony leading to the third floor prevented the use of twelve inch wooden girders. Instead of the ugly chain-hung-from-ceiling method, two pieces of heavy iron trolley rail placed through double walls — one a closet wall — and fastened thoroughly by braces, gave a fine holding purchase. On this the balcony was built, and it is as solid as the proverbial meat axe. Drachenfels has a boulder stone foundation, sides of stucco pan- eled with chestnut timbers, and roof of stain-dipped shingles. (It should have been of slate or tile.) Plate glass is used in all lower, and clear leaded glass in all upper wmdows, except twenty or more which are of stained glass. There are balconies from bedrooms and balconies from halls, their floors canvas covered ; window seats boxed full length for dresses, many windows columned, and with suitably colored leaded light, specially designed stained glass transoms for halls, dining room, library, parlor and bedrooms, and hard wood floors throughout the house, some with parquetry borders, but avoiding sharp color contrast which tends to curtail the size of a room. Twin Chimneys. The chimneys of Drachenfels are stone, and one of its chief motifs is shown in the twin chimneys, one at either side of the amber- hued 16x16 foot leaded north window. Indeed, Drachenfels fairly teems with motifs. The first floor, each room of which has broad sliding doors, converting the large area into one room at will ; the twelve foot wide stairway, the stair hall alcove with its forty foot height and striking leaded windows, and the mid-air balcony are all well worth working out. A POST WIDER AT TOP THAN BOTTOM 147 DPACHEMFEl ' 20 t'OOT VJIDE VERANDA A POST VnCF.R AT TOP THAU BASB A TAVENTV FOOT VERANDA. 148 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE HOUSE WHICH EDGED A FOREST. BUILDING OF CROSS WAYS 149 THAT r\,JtVit Foot \„ji • ".■ . faHHBiMttfiW <-<(£'^M THE LAWNS OF DRACHENFELS. 150 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE The Crater Garden. Grounds are arhoretum-edged, while on the lawns are grouped choice and desirable shrubs and trees, and there is a rare Druid- ical garden, into the centre of which was dragged, by that double yoke of cattle, a ponderous, representative Cromlech stone. This garden outlines a miniature Monte Nuova crater like that just outside of Naples. Standing on its edge, one looks down at a varied mass of flowering shrubs and plants. The winding paths are bordered by old-fashioned box, while lily, eglantine and honeysuckle perfume the air and brilliant blossoms carpet the ground. This wonderful little basin was of nature's fashioning; man simply in- tensified its beauty by rearrangement and planting. In some ways it outclassed an Italian formal garden. ISLAN'D HOUSE. Passing through the depth of the forest that surrounds Drachen- fels, as shown in the accompanying picture, in a spot where time and again the Indian pitched his wigwam, stands Island House. When one crossed the causeway, flashing in view, it seemed like a new discovery, so hidden by foliage and rocky cliff was this ideal semi- bimgalow with the big living room and stone fireplace, stairway hid- den behind the chimney, wide veranda, and upper balconies over- looking the water. The veranda posts rustic, the house itself attractive and homelike, it is the best example I know of a thoroughly con- structed, plastered and finished house built in ten weeks. There are ten rooms of good size, and it cost e\actl\' $,\()00. A pokehole head hitting cellar was the one drav\'back and a needless error. Two miles 'cross country, at the meeting of the ways, stands Crossways. With tliat broad towering exterior stone chimney, it fits THE CRATER GARDEN 151 DOGS AND THEIR MASTERS. 152 HOJV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE rarely the demands of country architecture as well as the site. Across the front of the house is a wide, roofed veranda, extend- ing beyond the house line on the northwest corner. How often CROSSWATS. I pity humanit5', baking on a south or east veranda, when, by building it as above and using an open rail, cool southwest breezes and a broadened view are obtained. Building up the stone foundation into two foot high base sup- ports to the veranda posts, as shown in the photograph, gives greater stability and a more pleasing effect than a continuous wooden railing. The wooden posts should have been twice as large. The Lavatory Theft. A screened minstrels' balcony on the stair landing is one of its features. A couple of steps under the main stairwaj' give ample head room in a lavatory practically stolen from the cellar, a plan well worth more general adoption. Either living or dining room may be used for eating, as winter's sun or summer's shade dictates, for in the large butler's pantry are doors to each. The windowed hall on the third floor in the ell between ser- vants' quarters and main house is utilized as a sei'vants' bathroom, but may be used as a thoroughfare on occasion, connecting the two portions of the house, as fixtures are screened with a wooden paneled partition — a pardonable makeshift under some circumstances. Crossways stands for comfort in every line. Red Towers. When I left Orange, the birthplace of Red Towers, I took with me as foreman a man born in Orange, who had never seen a rough bouldered stone wall like those crossing Westchester County and Connecticut in all directions. Indeed, the house is built in a stoneless land, as we in Connecticut understand stone and land. I've cleared many a Connecticut pasture with oxen, dynamite and AMERICA'S GIANT CAUSEU'AY 153 crowbar when there were upheaved on the surface enough stones to completely cover the ground to a depth of several feet and in a single winter on less than a dozen acres have had ten thousand inches drilled and dynamited, yet Orange is hardly sixty miles 'cross country from Hillcrest Manor.'* RED TOWERS. America's Giant Causeway. Red Towers savors a bit too much perhaps of the aggressive in architecture, yet is a dream of comfort within, while without a half dozen years' growth of trees and vines softened and toned its outline. Red Towers was a compromise between Queen Anne and an effort to do something out of the ordinan^, a common failing, but standing for progress. It had many good points towering above its neighbors in its sheath of green, with foundation of selected hard brown sand stone, first story trap rock, similar to that in the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and taken from a pillared rock deposit in the Orange Mountains, whose broken surface is almost a jet black and hard as flint — hearsay states it's the only Giant's Causeway in America. The mortar joints were red ; the balance of the house, both side walls and roof, covered with red tile, ornamented on chimney face and banded under the balcony with terra cotta bas-reliefs, while the tower was copied from one built on College Hill in Burlington, that ■'The man who reduces acts to figures and glories in statistics states that allowing fift\^ cents a day for labor the stone walls of Connecticut equal in cost the improvements of all kinds in the entire state. 154 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE hill of hills where from the windows on one side are seen Mt. Mans- field and the rare green mountains of Vermont, and from those on the other, snow-crowned Mt. Marcj', rising above Lake Champlain, surrounded b}- the health-giving pine forests of the Adirondacks. A large wood carving arched the porch veranda entrance, be- fore which was a broad stepping stone of granite six by eight feet. The front door was of quartered oak with carved lintel and leaded light, the knocker, in which was cut the owner's name, made from a knight's vizor, while the brass strap hinges and lock were heavy and of quaint design. The hall was trimmed in real cherry of dull velvet finish, and the brick hooded mantel, ceiling high, decorated with moose horns. Two large pillars carried the centre of the house, and sliding doors connected double parlors, dining room, conservatory and hall, making it possible to form one great pillared room when desired. The upper half of each conservatory sliding door consisted of a six foot square of plate glass. Conservatory. A hone^'combed, ornamental design in the brick wall under the conservatory was copied from a palatial residence in the Berkshires and the glaring spectacle windows from some forgotten source. The conservatory formed the arc of a circle at one side of the house, its roof of heavy skylight wired glass with ventilators protected by galvanized wire screens. It was later roofed in wood to prevent breakage. Glass electroliers and brackets were used to avoid corro- sion. Connected by a private stair, but on a lower level, leaving an unobstructed view from the dining room windows, were the green- houses. From these windows, one looked out on a continuous bouquet of bloom so far below and at such an angle as to overcome obiection- able glare. Just beyond were the cold graperies, roof connected to give length and proportion, yet entirely separated, and with air space between to avoid plant contamination through insect or disease. The library alcove, with high leaded windows over the book- shelves, was in a bayed tower, and opened from the southwest parlor, while from the north parlor was a door leading to the north- west veranda, thoroughly awned and with absolutely water-proof floor. The space beneath served for storage, sides being screened with translucent glass. Quartered oak trim was used in dining room, which was wain- scoted and had a squared bay on the southeast. The butler's pantry on the west was also trimmed in quartered oak. The basement, mainly abo\-e ground, contained kitclien, laundry, man's room, storage and furnace rooms, with potting house and ^boiler-room under the conservatory. THE SELECTED ELUOR 155 One servants' bath was in the basement, side walls to a height of six feet and the floor being covered with thick skylight glass — an unwise experiment as it proved slippery. Kitchen walls were faced with white glazed brick. The basement was made absolutely water-tight and ground air- proof within and without with underdrains and tar and cement treat- ment on floor and side walls. From cellar to third floor was a lift large enough for trunks, but the block-and-tackle rigged in the upper loft over the stair well proved a disastrous experiment. The entire second floor trim, like entrance hall, stairs, and parlor, was of genuine cherry. One dressing room and an outdoor bedroom overlooked Llewel- lyn Park and the mountain. The bed alcove connected with bath and dressing room, and was separated from the boudoir by a Moorish horseshoe arch fifteen feet wide reaching from floor to ceiling. The billiard room on the third floor was plaster finish to tower peak. On this floor were bedrooms with special features, for instance, mantels of unique design from eight to twelve feet in width, special cabinets, odd shelving, and picture windows, also dressing rooms. The red birch floors were selected from a pile of flooring con- taining 500,000 feet, and it required the entire time of two men for a week to select the finest and most beautifully grained. When planed, glass or steel scraped, sand papered, filled and waxed, floors were produced which today after years of wear, are practically pictures in H'ood. 156 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE FORCBS Kiiown UfiPfflOWH THE GATHEHmG STORM. ^ KLKimXTALS. BELLERICA 157 CHAPTER V. Bellerica — White Rock — A Yachtsmax's Shelter — Shore Rocks. NO finer bit of earth was ever w a\e-\vashed than the strand of sand and cliff that fronts Bellerica. It seems a fragment of the rock-ribbed coast of Mame transferred to Long Island Sound. There are Moorish touches in outdoor bedrooms, roof and porch lines, with large supporting posts and overhang, while the wall space is pierced with rounded bays and large picture windows in groups of twos and threes. BELLKRll.'A. The interior is spacious, with semi-(3riental treatment in stair, grill, balustrades, and alcoves. An over attic with casement win- dows hinged at the bottom, swinging inward and e\'er open, cools a third floor that is in many ways as pleasant and comfortable as the second. Large trees shade the porch and gi\'e seclusion. In fact, building and planting were tightly hand-clasped here. The advantages of immediately beautifying with tree and shrub are fuUv illustrated in the photographs showing both crude beginnings and mature de- velopment. 158 HOM^ TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Two Houses in One. A study of the floor plan will show that Bellerica is really a bi- family house, each having advantages, and the two quickly and prac- tically treated as one house when desired. WHITE ROCK. Here is con\entionaI little White Rock, a Philadelphia inspira- tion. It may have been the white stone steps in that placid city that suggested this name, but the reason for its building was the fact that I chanced to see one day in crossing Walnut Street the demolition of one of the grand old houses of Philadelphia. I bought the interior trim, including doors and windows, which were quaint and odd, and had them shipped to Connecticut. The roofs of the lift windows follow the slope of the upper gambrel. The afterthought ivindoics at tlie ridge are convenient though ugly, as afterthought windows as well as other built-in features sometimes are, but transformed a dark garret into comfort- able servants' quarters. A big white quarry ledge on the shore \\-as selected as its site, cellar blasted, and practically in three months this bit of Quaker City, as far as windows, doors and trim were concerned, was basking on the shores of the Sound. A House Enlarged, Yet Not Enlarged. A \ery con\enient house was White Rock, porch-pillared and porte-cochered, its interior more attractive than its exterior. The capa- city of the dining room was increased by the addition of a bay, an after- thought relief that helped amazingly, and tlie use of a round instead HARBOR VlEJ-r ENTRANCE 159' of a square table. A compromise serving pantry was made from a closet with doors opening into both dining room and kitchen. The front door had transom and side lights of "ye olden tyme," and all trim as stated was of pronounced Colonial type. A quaint and attractive staircase, columned living room, half a dozen cosy bedrooms, and a long room, half studio and half bedroom, over the porte cochere, all helped to make up a sightly and li\'able house. Years after, like four others of my creation, guided by sturdy horse and windlass, it strolled inland to give place to a more pre- tentious dwelling, but the quintette still exist as homes in the truest sense. Harbor View. A couple of stone entrance posts and a winding dri\e between trees that shade a roadway leading to the shores of the Sound reveal a wonderful panoramic view of island, sea, and headland as strikingh' beautiful in its way as that which suddenly greets the beholder as he crosses for the first time the threshold of the Catskill House and sees at his feet the valley of the Hudson, or emerges from the darkness of the Haverstraw tunnel into the blaze of light revealing the startlingiy beautiful view of that same Hudson flowing toward the sea. The development in lagoon and cur\ing waterwavs is akin tO' fair Venice. Indeed, Connecticut's "Harbor View" or "Yachtsman's Shelter" is even more than the name implies, for it Includes not only lagoon, harbor, and Sound views, but the beautiful woods through which the driveway reaches the shore are parked and arboretumed with rare skill. Houses of stone and stucco, shingle and brick, on wooded crag and hillock, fringe beach and cliff. 160 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE A house of flesh and blood is Shore Rocks. It is, like Pinnacle, representative of the building experience of nearly two score of years, and many of my air castles are in it woven into reality. To me it embodies solid comfort and completeness of appointment, but it was a far cr^' from its inception to the pulling of the latch-string. SHORE ROCKS. Water Lawn Groomed by Nature. Volcanic-veined and lichen-rifted rock and boulder, both under and o\er clitt, stood where we blasted out its cellar. It seemed down- right sacrilege to swing the axe against the gnarled and twisted cedar that had staunchly breasted the storms of hco hundred and fifty years or to destroy the moss grown and beautifully veined ledges with wedge, drill, and dynamite; but the choice was made, and today my dream of years, with its forty rooms, outlying pergolas, bathing pool, and yacht pier is a reality. The house is embowered in trees and every main room possesses an iminterrupted outlook across the Sound — a water lawn of many miles groomed by nature, one of man's care-free legacies, present- ing an e\er changing kaleidoscope of beauty. ()\cr the entrance of Shore Rocks is a chain-hung marquise, partly enclosed with a glassed-in vestibule, that essential hall draught-stopper, while on the brick outer posts are quaint non-rusting metal lamps. The cement and red tiled platform with metal edge and inset door mat is ornamented at its corners by lions, the platform being indented at the centre, forming a base pedestal support at each side. Cement joints between the tiling are three-quarters of an inch in width. All eave spoutheads are duplicates of Notre Dame gargoyles. WATER LAPFN GROOMED BY NATURE 161 THE LAST OF THE THIRTY STEPS IX BUILDING. The outer vestibule door is metal-grilled its entire lene;th, the inner single seven by nine door of English oak, sill of marble, siding of cement, ornamented at the centre with a classic head, \\'hile at either side in the white marbleized front are niches for plants, and an oddly wrought iron scraper of the vintage of a couple of centuries is set in the cement platform. The first story of Shore Rocks is ecru-face brick, every fifth course fastened with irons to the heavy wooden studding, giving an extra air space lor warmth. It has a corbeled stepped-outward brick water table on cut stone foundation. The second story siding is of three coat work in cement, the last coat thrown on with a trowel to give an exceptionally rough effect and di^euise the small surface cracks which alu-fiys appear in stucco. The middle coat was put on over the first coat to cover any openings through which moisture might strike the galvanized wire lath, an important point to remember when using this construction. Wire lath must be stiffened with iron rods and separated from the wood with V's, thus furring out the outer walls, decreasing liability to crack as the wooden sheathing shrinks. This air-space makes an absolutely dry house, appropriately called furring, from the fur of an animal. The basement wall is of quarried stone; roof of red mission tile, and gables of chestnut plank set upright, of equal width, T'd and G'd and slightly V'd at joining with wooden keys placed a couple of 162 HOrV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE cof/sruvAitFY FIRST AND SECOND STORY FLOOR PLANS. AT^ EASTERLY AT IVORK WITH A IFILL 163 SITE OF SHORE ROCKS. THE XORTH FRONT. 164 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE SHELTKRED HA P.Bf;!;. THE ICE BORDERED COAST LINE ONCE IN A DOZEN YEARS. CHANGES 165 "WHAT THK YEARS BROUGHT. 166 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Fl;uM SKlf;LETi:iN TO FTNISHIOIi HOUSI-:. < MIRAGE ROOM, SLEEPING PORCH, STAIR, ^VlNDO^^' SEAT. BANISHING THE FUNNEL STAIRWAY 171 ^-] SHORE ROCKS Diving- Pier in a storm. SHORE ROCKS Diving Pier in the grip of the Ice Kina-. feet apart on the seams. Woodwork of the upper portion of the house, together with the gables, is painted a bottle green, the rest of the trim being white. The eight foot overhang and this painting treat- ment lower the house. A projecting gable forms the top, and two windows the respective sides, of a panel five by ten feet, in which is fastened a copper bas-relief along graffito lines of a rescue at sea, following in a way that old Saxon style of exterior wall decoration. Windows, casement and lift, transomed and leaded, the majority of plate glass, number quite two hundred and twent^'-five, and there are seventy-five doors and one hundred and twenty electric outlets. Deeply embrasured Georgian casement windows, showing the heavy centre cross, light the entrance hall, whose floor is of quarr'.' tile while the vaulted ceiling is braced at twenty-five foot height h\ cambered beams. Walls are paneled with oak in squares to ceiling and the ceiling is of dark oak in Arabesque design. Set high in th,' w-aW each side of the stair landing gallery are paintings. Off the entrance hall are coat room and lavatory, enlarged and heightened by infringing on kitchen and basement, though not to the detriment of either. Banishing the Funnel Stairway. In some ways, the unusual was attempted in Shore Rocks, as shown in the entrance, lower stairway and second story corridor 172 HOPF TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE ENGLISH WINDOW IN THE LIBRARY AND WINDOW RECESS SEAT ON THE STAIRWAY. 'I'HE EAST SI 1 110 OF L1^'ING ROOM, POItCH ROOM BEYOND. QUOIN, BUTTRESS AND ARCH 173 lAWD-I-OCKSD MOTOR BOAT BBPTH 0«, hm#m^^ 1 i ^a LAND LOCKED MOTOR BOAT LAGOON. 174 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE UPPER STAIR AND THE R. AND J. BALCONY. halls. Instead of the city scheme of an upright funnel from front door to roof, incidentally causing a large loss of heat, the stair- case from second to third story is at one side and behind a double arch, allowing of beamed ceiling treatment in the main stairway hall, and giving a twenty-five foot height in the clear over the stairs. One really enters the principal rooms of the house after passing through the entrance hall under a broad arch supported by rabid-mouthed, grotesquely-molded gargoyles, by a short flight of five six and one- half inch riser steps, twenty feet wide, which lead to the staircase hall twenty-five feet square lighted by lended casements in the boudoir on the mezzanine floor. On the pedestals flanking these wide stairs are grouped masses of the unkillable Ficus Pandurata. Fireplace Opening 10'8". The bobbed fireplace opening in the staircase hall is ten feet eight inches wide. It has crane and trammels and from its iron header iriDE RJNGE OF FIRE DOG 175 beam are suspended three metal rings used in "ye olden tynie" to handle "yc huge Yule log." The broad mantel shelf of oak, banded and ornamented with wrought iron, projecting two feet from side wall, is eighteen inches through and eight feet from the floor, supported by caryatides, and the motto across its face reads, "Sings the blackened log a tune learned in some forgotten June." For either end of this mantel shelf we had planned a complete set of ancient armor, but compromised with a single sp:?cimen of the armorers' art guarding the stairway. THE PORCH ROOM SOUTH AND WEST. THE EAST VERANDA. Wide Range of Fire Dog. In Shore Rocks the field of the fire dog is wide, ranging from twice the size of a Great Dane to that of the low pudgy dachshund, and from ponderous black iron to lighter framed, gleaming brass and 176 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE GLIMPSES OP THE SEA. THE TREE ROOM 177 THt BAIrCONY CORRtRWIHDCWS Aincii.t 7 x^ 1)0013, THE irui:' v.'iriDCW THE TRIX ROOM A ■SLEEPIKOi PO-R.CH WORKING OUT IXTERIOr. DETAILS. 178 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE OMS. SlEtPlnO PORCH ^'^AT N^ZIAtimt ftOOR ■ ■wiRKLioss noojr, coxsionvATOUY, mezzanine floor. STALKING LION GUARD RAIL 179 nickel forged and molded in varied forms from cannon ball crowned fronts to grotesque midget fire-warders. The woodwork of all first story rooms, including stairs and wainscoting of both entrance and upper and lower staircase halls, is English oak and all have oak floors. Basement and bedrooms are floored with Georgia rift pine. THE WIRELESS STATION. THE SHELTERED LAGOON. THE TILED YACHT PIER. Stalking Lion Guard Rail. The first stair landing is ten feet wide, reached bv four steps of the same width, with ten and one-half-irch tread, the protecting side rail formed by a stalking lion of Caen stone, and the main balustrade hand-car\-ed, with deep and broad top-rail. Turning, the stairs rise about ten feet and connect with a musicians' or min- strels' balcony fourteen feet wide by twenty feet long, supported by 180 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE A BAT IN ONE OF THE MASTER'S BED ROOMS. THE N. \\'. lONIi OF LINING I :i l' >M. SI H MVING r.ARUlOLED CEJLING. J STUDY IN ROCK FORMATION rHfi. TII^E-D YACHT PIER 181 THE ESPLANADE. 182 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE DETAILS OP SHORE R.OCKS m THE SHADOW IH THt SUHUGHr — OP LIFE- IN THE SHADOW — IN THE SUNLIGHT — OV LIFE. TRILOBITE N Elf EL CAP 183 brackets on the ends of which are carved panther heads. This balcony has a red leather trimmed settle its entire length, and over- looks both entrance and staircase halls. Window Seat on the Stair. Half way up the ten-foot rise is an oriel alco\e, c(jmfortably cushioned and projecting into the library, into which its casements swing high above the book-cases. Two of the translucent leaded windows have the usual book-mark motif, while on the centre window is the coat of arms, raottoed, "Seek and thou shalt find." Both hall and library are improved by this swinging casement, whether open •or closed. The unattractive space under the stairs, sometimes utilized by a homely boxed-in closet, is featured with a marble-rimmed plant basin filled with interrogation point fronded ferns and brilliant foliaged plants, while surmounting the main newel is a lion rampant carved in oak. The under side of the stair soffit curves to the floor. The second story hall is thirty-three feet square, including the stair well opening, and is furnished as a room. The third story stair hall is lighted and carried to the somewhat impressive height of twenty-five feet by abruptly stopping the fourth story floor beams thus forming an overhanging balcony — the roof dormer lighting both halls and stairs. Newel Problem. Sameness is avoided in the stairs, whether basement or top story, back or front. Newels are of varied form, jome built into pillars to ceiling height, with naiad or faun faced brackets braced against the ceiling ; others plastered barriers surmounted with carved brackets and scrolls, or merged into railings, with inset bas reliefs. Crowning one newel is a crystal ball, another a statue, and a third a flaming torch. Balusters are placed singly or in twos and threes or sepa- rated by panels. Trilobite Newel Cap. We decorated the newel from second to third story with a bit of Himalayan rock lathe-turned in globe form, containing trilobites that ceased to breathe o\'er two million )ears ago. One squared newel post reaching to ceiling height has metal half inch beading at each of its four corner joints, and gi\'es bracuig strength to an especially long trimmer. Living Room. Either through the wide mirrored door of the staircase hall or by the little library stair (which is protected on the living room side by a settle instead of a rail, on the opposite side by a brass standard and silken rope) one enters a living room thirty-five by forty-five feet, in 184 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE itself as large as many modest country houses. It is a room of arches, columns and mirrors. Six pairs of French casements open to a com- pletely furnished porch room overlooking the water, counteracting in a measure the lonesome grandeur and monotony of an exceptionally large room. The entire east, north and south sides are doored and windowed in glass in winter, and its thirteen foot ceiling is cemented on galvanized wire lath, crossed by ebonized beams. THE MOTOR BOAT CAVE. WEST END OF PIER. Two corners of the large living room have groined ceilings, while the remainder of the room is straight beamed. Fluted columns, and pilasters, double, single, and Ionic capped are freely used. THB CQNSSRVATORY FLYING ARCHES THE MABQUISE- THE HALF EUPaED LEA'IATHAN". 186 HOJr TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE All IDEAI, HA"P-T30R CARVED BY THE ELEMENTS. THE SEGMENTED CEILISG 187 THE BREAKFAST ALCOVE ^\'ITH PICTURE ^^■I^•DOW THE BIG BAY IN DIXIXG ROOM. ^ THE HALL FIREPLACE, A FIRE OPEXIXG OF TEX FEET EIGHT IXCHES. HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE EXTRAXCE TO YACHT PIER FROJI VERANDA. A BIT OF THE MAINE COAST -WITHTX AN HOUR OF NEW YORK. HERALDRY 189 Dining Room. Through sliding doors whose pockets are evenh' ceiled to guide the door and as protection from dust and draught and whose upper hah'es are leaded glass to a\oid the barn like appearance gi\en by a solid sliding door, one enters the barreled, arched ceilinged dining room.. This is partly Grecian, with walls and ceilings paneled in marhleized cement. The floor is of quaint eight inch wide thor- oughly kiln dried oak planks, riveted every four feet with black inset wooden keys. The sliding door to butler's pantry, made tu close tightly yet move easily, controlled by foot pressure, is not in direct line with the kitchen door. A semi-polygon bay on the Sound side is formed of plate glass picture windows and used as a breakfast alcove while the bay eighteen feet wide on the north fitted with se\'en deeply embrasured, transomed Elizabethan grouped windows — a flagrant lapse from a strictly Greek room — is cool and inviting on the hottest day and on the coldest a tropical temperature is assured by the combination of an efficient heating plant and double windows. Barreled Ceiling. The half moons formed by the barreled or segmented ceiling at each end of this room are decorated, one with viking craft manned by fierce and stalwart Norsemen on battle bent, the other with the historic Mayflower on its errand of peace and good will. The door of the electrically lighted cabinet for the display of cut glass balances the butler's pantry door. Livmg and dining rooms can be thrown into one, giving an area of twenty-five hundred square feet, or, if desired, all of the gala rooms can be made to form one large room, aggregating over six thousand square feet. Library. On the level with the entrance hall are library and con- servatory, also finished in oak and connected by a short flight of stairs with the living room. This arrangement gives the library a height of sixteen feet, and ample overhead space for the appropriate use of large cambered ceiling beams. Under the windows, planted against a panel is a wall fountain of Caen stone and a corresponding panel on the exterior of the house is decorated with a bronze bas-relief. The arch vmder the stairs and beneath the platform has a uniform spring across the entire space. Below it is an ingle-seat. Heraldry. An heraldic design is molded in the hood of the Caen stone cement mantel which rises, in the form of a wide shaft, slightlv tapering, to the extreme height of the room and has rounded instead 190 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE LIBRARY AND CONSERVATORY. TIIK WII)!-; STAIRWAY. THE BO J TING LAYOUT 191 ...» A^ PE'SOX-M CLOTHES YA5i> BELVEUBRE. SERVICE GATE, FOUNTAIN. 192 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE vmw PROK TH£ tAZtm YIJCW FROM THE GAZEBO. A BALANCED WORLD 193 of squared edges. The loft5', clear glass, English leaded windows on the west about fourteen feet high have centred in their upper panes a color design. At this end of the room a quaint little stair leads to a mezzanine floor fitted up as a reading or writing den. When the stair casement ha.\ window on the north above the bookcases is swung open, one views the conservatory, which forms a portion of the south side of the library, and from the library the second story beamed corridors. With casements closed and drawn draperies over the stained leaded glass, each room is completely separated, but when open extended vistas are disclosed. Electric Fountain. A fountained conservatory leading from the library is roofed on the south with wood instead of glass, to avoid damage, prevent glare on second story windows, and give a cooler room. All upper lights of the nine windows that front the south are leaded, and orna- mented with delicate tracery. A low glass-roofed greenhouse is an essential feeder if one wishes profuse bloom in a wooden roofed conservatory. The white tile floor, thoroughly drained, is a restful contrast with the green of the plants. In the centre is an electric fountain, and on each side of the entrance are heavy Ionic-capped columns, while the side wall of the library the entire width of the room above the conservatory arch is of leaded glass, the design a sylvan forest scene, the inward view, birds, flowers and fronds, stirred by the splashing, electrically illuminated fountain ; the outward Long Island Sound. A Balanced World. In a corner of the conservatory was an aquatic wardian case consisting of a glass jar covered with a pane of glass and fairly air- tight, its contents water, algae from the brookside, and minute animal life. In this ad infinitum world were carried on year after year the processes of being. In a sense the same water, the same plant, the same insect, life and death and life again, an everlasting world within a world. Kitchen. On the main floor is the kitchen, with floor and side walls white tiled. A separate galley, in which the glass-hooded range fitted with electric chimney fan, makes the main kitchen comfortable even in the hottest weather. Windows overlooking the front door are set overhead close to ceiling and with the addition of a skylight give pure air and a cooler kitchen. 194 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Ample pantries, refrigerator room and servants' porch, complete the first floor, while below stairs are boiler and storage rooms, salt and fresh water baths, with showers and boat racks. ONE CiF THK THREE SCREENED SLEEPING PORCHES. CLOTHES CHUTE CLOSET .A.ND LAUNDRY TUBS. Six Tubs Centre the Laundry. The laundry in the above-ground basement has si.\ tubs in the centre of the room placed back to back. When covered thev form a large table and aid in transforming the laundry into an additional sitting room for the maids. The stairway is grilled and between two columns joined by a grill one enters the servants' dining hall, in a corner of which are dish closets and porcelain paiitr\" sink. A balanced lift connected with the kitchen prevents dish breaking. Hardwood floors furred for air space are laid over the tar coated cement, and \xindows e.xtend from floor to ceiling. Rooms decorated ,y SIIJDED BREEZE POIXT 195 GEORGIAN WINLiOW AND GAZEBO. 196 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE- LRKD LOCKED HARBOR EAtOH'S tJECR mS:«i A MILUOTiroYST£r THE swmHmCi pool. A MlLUOIiCoYSTrr.^'i Hef^.^ M W^M 9 Wk pi riYlilG ARCHES ' J A FORBEAR. THE FERN CORNER 197 THE STAIRCASE HAEL. and calciniined in suitable colors, and woodwork white enameled, give a homelike look and eliminate all suggestion of a basement. Walls and floors separating the servants' quarters from the main house are thoroughly deadened. Outside doors are four feet wide with upper panels glazed. Bedrooms. Bedrooms number twenty, several en suite, each with its own bath or bath closet, and two with salt water connection. There are three sleeping porches of generous size, and adjoining them cosy windowed and heated dressing rooms. An overhanging stair balcony and a studio finished and beamed to the ridge with a window filling the entire north side are additional features. Some bedrooms have curved top bed alcoves from whose brass rods are suspended draperies, and jewel safes are inset in walls. There are burglar-proof vaults concealed in chimney arch in the 198 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE CONSERVAT< IRY AXD PORCH ROOM. THE r.ATHIXG REACH. CHILDREN'S SHIMMING POOL 199 basement, fire protected by air spaces, the new close-jointed sliding door for closets and narrow spaces ; secret panel doors in dressers and lockers; a roof lookout back of the chimne\' and an aluminum clothes chute to laundry. Every house should have a readily reached and railed-in lookout platform. Aside from the uplift view, it is far easier to inspect and repair roof, chimney, izutters, and flashin^is. The tub in the bathroom over the east hall closet is inset eighteen inches in the floor, protected with side railing, somewhat as in a Pompeiian bath, and several tubs are made stationary against the side walls — less tiling, less dust, more sanitary, yet more difficult to repair a clogged or split trap or pipe, and greater disturbance of tihng. Several bedrooms, billiard room and den are on the third floor. TWO VIEWS OF HARBOR FRONT. 200 HOJV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE The Telescopic House. Shore Rocks is so planned and built that certain floors, stair- ways and rooms can be cut off from the rest of the house, the plumbing reduced by a series of shut-offs to that required for an ordinary ten-room house, three-fourths of the big heating plant EXTFiANCE HALL. MUSICIANS BALCONY. easily disconnected, and the occupants thus made practically inde- pendent of servants by reducing a working force of a dozen or more to two or three . All upright heating pipes placed to be easily reached are concealed within closets or cohmins. Swimming Pool. Grounds are laid out with pergola, Italian gardens, and swim- ming pool, depth of water in which is controlled by a water- A CONNECTICUT CAPRI WHEN JIAX AVAS YOUNG. 202 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE VIEW or TUX- oFfrnCi "tlSHmii tPOM VERAIIDA EXTEriSion THE SINGLE DOOR 203 jiate to the open Sound. Electric li^fhts edge the rim o:f this (juol, dispelling "eerie creeps" that sometimes overtake even the THE SINGLE DO<;)R. ENTRANCE AND STAIR HALLS. seasoned water dog who dips at midnight, while on barrier wall, esplanade and parapet are large terra cotta vases or statues in red, gray, and verde-antique. There are deep-water landing pier, cement fireproof garage with suitable pit, and under the veranda bowling alley, workshop and bathing houses with hot and cold showers. In fact many of the features that make Pinnacle the house ideal one will find also in Shore Rocks. A pergolad gazebo is built on seamed, rugged, sea-weed-clad rocks, a peculiar ledge formation fronting this portion of the Sound and of keen interest to the geologist. The stone rampart rail centred 204 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE with plants its entire length, edges the water with a green wall of salt-defying cedars. Under the gazebo, which is built on heavj^ stone arches, is a grotto. Sea grasses grow in stone crevices near the splashing waves, and hammocks swung in the shadow of post and arch mean luxurious comfort even on the warmest day. THE MOTOR BOAT CAVE. CHILDREN'S SWIMMING POOL. Peering from a cave-like fissure in the rock of the grotto is a metal dragon that in a storm spouts white flecked foam with a roar above that of the pounding waves — a bit of realism that often pleases grown-ups as well as children. Salt air and occasional salt mist spitefully but fruitlessly assail the poplars, Japanese privets, beach plums, the Euonymous, sea buck- thorns, tamarisks and Rosa rugosas that among other plants adapted for use at the seashore fringe the rocky water front. SALT DEFYING PLANTS 205 Stone buttresses of pronounced entasis and flying arches that support the gazebo are buffeted bv pounding waves and e\'en the top of the pergola at times is bathed with flying spume. At night electric lights illumine grotto, pergola, belvedere, swimming pool, yacht pier, THE SERVICE GATEWAY, OUTWARD. ENTRANCE TO HARBOR. gardens overhanging the sea, and the boat storage room. Indeed, electricity has been harnessed to the limit of its present tether in Shore Rocks, installations including vacuum cleaning plant, range, laundry equipment, elevator, and telephones in each main room. Yacht Pier. The yacht pier is reached from the veranda by cement steps, pro- tected by stone balustrade to red quarry-tiled landings. Stone posts are capped with plant receptacles. 206 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE „, THE. EV£R CHAHCUMG VIATE-'R PROMT wo VIEW THE- SSPLAHADE rKg- gnrRMic^ Wiirk A GEOLClGIST'S PARADISE. FROM BOAT TO I'ERANDA 207 The Motor Boat Lagoon. Lower down is the big stone pier, also quarry tiled, its Lcntre excavated for a land-locked lagoon about 20 x 30 feet where a motor boat can berth in absolute safety. The pier is equipped with boat davits, diving plank, floating platform reached by steps^ A LOUNGING CORNER ON YACHT PIER. BELVEDERE AND SWIMMING POOL, and heavy galvanized iron rings for fastening boats. A brass railed platform and adjustable yacht steps hang from the wall of the lagoon. One end of the pier is covered with an awning on galvanized iron frame and single tiled steps are placed at regular intervals among the rough rocks that edge the Sound, that safety may not be sacrificed to the picturesque. An iron roller inset in the edge of the pier readily handles small boats without injury. At one end of the beach is rigged a convenient set of ways, with block and tackle fastened in the rocks, so that a motor boat or even a large yacht can be warped out. :208 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Our flag pole does double duty, as on it is rigged a wireless, catching messages from Eastport, Maine, to the Florida Keys, and for a thousand miles out at sea, from dreadnought and liner as they fly past, or the code language of a manoeuvering army. The dock is partially enclosed with a woven, galvanized wire guard with brass top rail and broad stone ledge steps are built against its sides, enabling one to bathe or land from boats at all tide levels.* In the grounds is an interesting example of tree growth. Bor- dering the Sound are two trees, one a hoary-headed oak of two and a half centuries, and less than a stone's throw from it a Wier's cut leaf maple that I shouldered and planted as easily as I would a bean pole exactly seventeen years ago. The trunk of the maple is now three-quarters the diameter of the sturdy oak, and in height closely crowds its aged neighbor. Centreing the belvedere is a sun dial of the type that marked the hours for Pliny in that wonder garden. It is fitted with time equation and bears the motto, "It is always morning somewhere in the world," the antithesis of the less helpful and more lugubrious saying, "We are all traveling toward sunset." ■-■'The absence of all sewage in the clear water surrounding Shore Rocks made our special and essential August battle against the teredo and xylotrya strenuous. Kyanizing the "wood did not rout the mollusk, his diet being minute organisms and plants that float through - the doorway of his shell-lined house-tomb. Copper paint and big headed rustj' nails saved . boats, ways, and spiles from the inroads of these destructive rats of the water. UNSHADOlfED OUTLINES 209 TWO SEASONS. 210 HOir TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE THE \ ^\f BHTHMICE RMl AMD SXftIR CASE. ' HAtI Pl.NNACLK THE HOl'SE IDEAI PINNACLE 211 CHAPTER VI. PixxACLE, The House Ideal, Yet Thorough i.i' Practical.- Home. nXXACLE. THE building of Pinnacle was the realization of a desire to put under one roof the experiences of a lifetime in experimental building, therefore 1 say that for t\venty-fi\e years I had been building Pinnacle before the time was ripe, and that June morning dawned when I staked out the house, and, emulating the railroad builder, "turned over the first clod of earth." \Vhile its cost carried well over $10(J,000 it contained some features that could easily be introduced into a $2,500 bungalow. Let us trace backward its how and why. Location was of first importance. Should it be by the edge of some inland lake, gemmed 'mid rock-ribbed moimtains ; on one of the Thousand Islands stem- ming the current of a mighty ri\'er, or near the sand and rock-hound shores of Long Island Sound, the centre of Eastern yachting; close to the roaring breakers, or in cloud-land, on some barren, ozone- bathed mountain peak, near the snow line; to the depths of the health-giving North woods; in the swim or away from it? But the snow line did not jibe with rose gardens, and the restless sea seemed e\'er to impart its restlessness to nerve and muscle. Then came the idea of using the old Dillaway place in the Berkshires, consisting of two hundred acres of woodland, meadow, and grassy hill top, and a 212 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE charming demesne it proved, the long driveway flanked with a veritable floral calendar wherein for eight months of the year and every day of the eight months new blossoms opened to the sunlight, and during the remaining months the rare coloring of red-stemmed dogwoods and steel blue spruces brightened a drear landscape. Near by stood tall Irish junipers, like sentinels among their fellows, inter- spersed with vari-colored, gracefully feathered Retinosperas, and Biotas in silver, gold, and green. In the centre of our largest field, in size, as a plainsman would put it, "three whoops, a halloa, and a holler," was left intact, picturesquely outlined against the sky line a ghostly dead tree — resting place for the bourgeois chicken hawk or imperial eagle who, unhampered by adjacent towers of green, scans with keen eye the horizon both for enemies and prey. As nature had placed forest, hill, and dale, sih'er-threaded river, babbling brook and limpid pool exactly right to meet our require- ments, location was simpler than construction. Eschewing clay soil, the very icorst for a building site, we pre-emptied the best^ a dry, porous gravel edging a seamless, free-from-moisture granite ledge.** How to Face the House. The sun was invited where it would be most welcome. The rising sun at times met us at breakfast, scorching beams of July and August shot by our dining table, as this room faced southeast, but the living room, large enough to dodge heat rays or bask in their health-giving glow as temperature dictated, faced the sunnv south and breezy west. The library on the north welcomed with blazing log, easy chair, and book, while the kitchen, as it faced north and east, could not saturate the house with odors that the west wind seems to joy in scattering. Due west rooms we found need special ventilation, as they broil to their farthest recesses with the heat of the low western sun, while in a southern exposure the King of Day is high in the heavens. Architecture. Before location came the vital question of architecture. Should it be Byzantine, Moorish, Gothic, French or Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan or Jacobean, a house outlined with Palladian formality without and probably inconvenient within, or the construction repre- sented by that talismanic word of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries — Colonial. The latter, with its high pillars, square rooms, and glaring "don't touch me" white enamel finish, to us lacked the homelike feeling that all crave, but its impressive columned and archi- traved exterior made it a near second in the final decision, as a pil- lared Colonial front is always a fa\-orite. We could not copy com- pletely the English country house, with its small diamond windows and lack of veranda and porch room, unsuited to our climate, but a ■'The redemptlun of any soil, includinj; clay, as a building site is possible b\ thor- ough drainage and the correct use uf stone, cement, oil and tar. J BONE-DRY HOUSE 213 cohtrent expression of the best, combining as far as feasible the intrinsic worth of all, brouf^ht us into that somewhat complex realm, the New American. In considering the m.ooted question as to which is more desirable, exterior or interior beauty, the argument that thousands see the out- side to one who enters a house counted as nothing in our decision to make an ideal interior, even at the sacrifice of exterior features. A Bone-Dry House. Corrugated hollow brick tile above the stone basement, covered with a rough coat of cement, was decided upon, but — and the but is a big one — the vitally important work of water-proofing by tarring the hollow brick tile on the back, and furring for a two inch air space aided greatly in making Pinnacle a bone-dry-house. Gables were paneled with chestnut timber^ realistically chipped by the broad axe, avoiding the regularity of the scalloped pie-crust imitation. Though rough cement holds more moisture, it conceals the inevitable minia- ture cracks, and with suitable air spaces all side walls were damp- proof. It is the builder's duty to combat ground air to the finish. Any substance charged with from thirty to fifty per cent, of fumes, depending on soil conditions, detrimental to man's well being is worthy his keenest steel.* Pinnacle was fireproof as far as I-beam, hollow brick, glazed and unglazed terra cotta, tile, cement, wire, copper, glass, wire glass, and fireproof paint could make it. Exterior requirements called for embellishments of a tourelle on corbeled base, mmaret, campanile, and dormers in a major key, and to harmonize its varied outline demanded ample space and a com- manding site. We followed the rule that a house should rise naturally from ledge or greensward. Paths and roads, of which there were but few, simply touched it at salient points, curving at easy gradient toward gate, garage, and garden. Foiled thus 'gainst nature's restful colors, more harmony was gained than by a network of blue graveled roads or dingy black asphalt close to house line, save in the necessary car- riage sweep. In fact, those not hourly thoroughfares were founda- tioned by closely cropped turf, sloping away from which were banks of bloom and foliage, but from these were barred swift moving or lumbering vehicles, whether powered by horse or gasoline. The Builder's Truck Horse, Cement. Cement, though it shows marks of the beast in lime efflorescence and dampness, makes a fine truck horse, and we used it profusely in archway and buttress, outside steps and veranda rail, swimming pool, curbing, retaining walls and in walks, cellar and laundry floors, ■ The moccasin shod or unshod Indian drew electricity through the soil as the tree drags it forth by the rays of the sun, doubtless lo his well being, but modern dwellings and modern living demand drier conditions. Statisticians claim that common sense hygiene would banish forty-five per cent of our present ills. 214 HOJf TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE side walls, back halls and servants' quarters — anywhere and every- where that rough usage could mar, as well as in curves and molded ornaments, buttresses hollowed for plant receptacles, cement window- sill boxes, steps, seats and columns. Cement flooring was especially treated to pre\-ent crumbling under friction, as a common cement floor is never clean. Under conditions where wood covered cement or brick there was ventilation. Alarble dust cement was used, efflorescent stains if present were removed with a one-tenth solution of muriatic acid. Capillary attraction fought with anti-damp, thick, pasty, water-proof paint, made our walls practically moisture-proof, as even the foundation stones were separately coated on sides and back with tar and wooden pegged between the joints for air spaced plastering. In all cement flooring was used a core of galvanized 1-2 inch wire mesh. Corners of the brick bay of the conservatory were of sheep-nose molded brick, avoiding the usual dirt collecting angle formed in a bay. The water table, of ogee bricks based with cut stone, threw water well away from foundations. Outbuildings not roofed with fireproof tile or asbestos and cement manufactured shingles were covered with red cedar shingles, which often outwear white, the latter splitting more easily and causing many an exasperating leak. No shingles over six inches wide were used ; they were split that width when necessary, and laid with four and one-half instead of the usual five and one-half inch weatherage. Pantiles roofed some of the more important buildings. Valleys were flashed with copper to a width of eighteen inches, and a wide open valley left to delay as long as might be the inevitable rotting of shingles through moisture, always a formidable enemv. Construction was closely watched, with an eye to circumventing the fire fiend, and the carpenter who led stringers and rammed slid- ing doors into or against the chimney, as well as the plumber or plasterer who left fires unguarded, or used defective salamanders, received his Saturday night pay in a blue envelope. The Window Problem. Our aim was to combine comfort, convenience and luxury. One often enters an imposing dwelling \\'ith eager enthusiasm for a pro- spective architectural feast, but leaves with a keen sense of dis- appointment because of a window set too high or a staircase that had to be searched for and when found was dark and narrow, bringing up in a windowless hall. A generous forecourt, esplanade and belve- dere once decided upon, attention was turned to the windows. It took time to settle whether they should be big and staring or unob- trusive and picturesque, to decide upon the merits of glaring plate glass over against the time honored leaded oriel pane. Outlook sometimes tires of manorial diamond panes, as does the housemaid THE tf'INDOir PROBLEM 215 who cleans them. We finally compromised on plate jilass where there was an extensive view, in several cases fitted with a swmgmg shutter of colored or clear leaded glass in simple design, serving to soften both light and outline, and answering the purpose of a double window in winter. Large paned windows tend to decrease antl small to increase the apparent size of a house both within and without and certainh' detract greatly from the pleasing inlook of any dwelling, still, picture windows here and there always give good \alue for their framing cost, whether in view of glorious mountain range, white crested waves dashing 'gainst rock-ribbed coast, or in more peaceful contrast a pastoral scene or a towering, swaying forest. In sombre rooms some windows stretched nearly to ceiling height, where there is more light to the square foot, though this treatment seemed to lower the rooms ; several had smooth edged plate glass wind shields about twenty-four inches high which could be easily lifted, as they slide upward in grooves, in others a framed sheet of glass set on the sill swung inward from the top, and gave still greater ventilation. The House That Pays No Tax. Monsieur Mansard is said to ha\e circum\ented that senseless window tax of France which placed a premium on dark houses by adapting, not inventing, the windowed roof that bears his name, thus helping to supplant imitation painted doors and windows which economy sometimes led the builder to intersperse with the real, cater- ing to that monstrous law which enforced payment for air and sun- light. Our building laws tend in the opposite direction, uhile it is said Buenos Aires, that ideal city of ideal houses, goes us one better, as he who builds the most artistic house pays no tax. In some coun- tries it is said a new house supplanting an old is untaxed. "Woodman, spare that tree, " howe\er pathetically rendered, ne\er held hack the axe when the alternative was shade instead of health-giving sunlight. Inset in a few windows were restful leaded lights — in one a fishing craft, in another a coat of arms, and book- marks in the library. One glance through a half open casement thus decorated inclines to optimism. Windows with large panes were exteriorly draped with climbing vines.* Height was another ques- tion. The majority were so placed as to afford an unobstructed view when seated, while in the kitchen they were set high to avoid overlooking the front door approach, additional light being obtained through a skylight. Both ga\e rare ventilation. No casements were used on the first floor, sash-hung windows giving greater secur- ity, less draught, and being more easily screened, but when used we hung them to open outward, rabbeting thoroughly, and hanging from the top those more likely to be left open to prevent their being whisked "■"■We onct realistically gilt franied and wire liung a picture window that sliamed the artists' most strenuous endeavors. 216 HOW rO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE across the lawn in case of a wind storm. All casement windows were fitted with the necessary convex screens which, however, more readily rust and decay. Windows were chain-hung on brass pulleys to avoid snapping, stretching, or slipping of cords. They were fitted with automatic attach- ment holding them at any height, and with non-rattling fix- tures, metal weather strips, and automatic fastenings. In some low studded rooms box windows slid upward into the partition, allowing broad view panes. Parting strips with adjustable screws in sunken sockets matched in color the hardware, and non-rusting w'ire screens had a patent insect escape to lure the fly to the open. Leaded lights that cheer with varied hue both out and in- looker as day merges into night lighted the staircase landing. Most leaded and stained glass bathroom windows were set high, and even a northern room was glowed by the use of opalescent glass of golden hue. We also juggled with two rooms facing due north, producing in some degree the effect of light and warmth by judicious placing of wall dressing mirrors. Corner windows were many, as they give most light and more wall space for furniture, but care was taken that none were in line with those on the opposite side of a room. First story windows were set 2' 6" from floor line, and those of second and third stories a trifle higher. Translucent glass windows were fitted close to ceiling line on the hall side in several rooms with but one outside wall, affording more light and ventilation, and all bedrooms had transoms or fan lights. Glass formed the upper half of the back stair partition, and the rail fitted with the hand grip.* Fastened over the entire outside window were screens practically invisible, the wire approaching an atmospheric color, with frames painted to match trim and aid in the illusion. In some cases screens dropped into pockets when not in use. Double windows were drawn tightly in place by screws put into the frame through screw eyes fastened in the in-face of the double sash, and each had its own ventilating wicket. Telescopic Window. The five inch round lenses were so ground that at some angles distant objects were magnified, but the effect on the eyes made the scheme impracticable. Single Block Stone Steps. The set of three entrance steps and the buttresses at each side cut from a single block of granite, prevented for all time a sagging, open-jointed step. ■■■The dark hall and stair were unknown conditions. FEUDAL HALL 217 THE KNOCKER MADE FAMOUS BY PAUL, REVERE. The Pig Door. The door through which we entered the home was called in old English parlance the "pig door," built by our ancestors to pre- vent wandering swine from encroaching on granary or dwelling. Both upper and lower halves swung on ponderous black iron hinges, and were oak-ribbed, bolt-studded and iron-banded. The quaint iron knocker was that used by Paul Revere when, on the night of his wild ride through Lexington and Concord, he awakened John Han- cock and Samuel Adams with the warning that the British were marching on the Concord stores. Only a bit of metal, yet few lift the old knocker without being thrilled by the thought that it once vibrated -with the first shots of the Revolution fired on the village green of Lexington — that fusillade that was heard round the world. Feudal Hall. In the hall we strike the key note of the house. Centreing the home, it centres our thoughts of hospitality and good cheer, its walls ever greeting the coming and speeding the parting guest. The impress of feudalism stamped generous fireplace, and vaulted and groined roof. Cold, I grant, through its very grandeur, but home feeling is ever the same, whether in mediaeval mansion, elaborated with drawbridge, portcullis, and conning tower, or in the rose-porched cottage under the hill. Living Room. Passing through the entrance hall, we enter the living room of Pinnacle. The half dozen French windows face the ■west, opening upon the loggia from which broad steps edging the esplanade lead to the formal gardens, embellished with pergolas and arbors. At the end of the long vista is the Italian adaptation of statue and vase. 218 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE Looking down on the sunken gardens, the e_ve covers a wide range of rare trees, shrubs, and plants, while on the outskirts are evergreens, interspersed with silver birches, imitating Nature, who often uses them as a foil against evergreen backgrounds, this planting forming a natural setting for brilliantly massed azalias, rhododen- drons and peonies. The sunken garden was developed and embellished as sunken gardens generally are, with centred pool, half-circled seats, colonnade, pergola, fountain, vase, and statuary. Yew and privet were trimmed to the extreme of formalism in cube, cone, oval, pyramid and mound, and even in bird and animal forms, and niches cut in the ten foot high privet hedge to frame and canopy faun and satyr, Greek god, and mythological hero as well as a Cleopatra and a Caesar. Arbre-arched foot gates with garniture of bloom pierced the big boundary hedges, and tempted the stroller in that fair garden to wider wandering through sylvan realms of meadow, dell, and wood, threaded by babbling brook and foam-flecked waterfall that faintly murmur in the distance. At the horizon line loom the hills. An entrance from one side of the living room led to a secluded, columned, and arched patio, whose courtyard centre was grass-sown, pathed, and shrubbed, save where fountained lily pond partially reflected arch, column and tiled roof line. We never transplanted weed-filled sod but used grass seed e.vcept for path borders, which were sodded wide enough for satisfactory use of the ordinary lawn mower. Two large settles flanked the living room's twin fireplaces, and a most comfortable bit of furniture was a big double-sided club davenport, with concave end, in which fitted a movable round table for books and writing material. Foot wide mirrors in the corners to window top height gave no ill-bred, staring reflections, simply fleeting glimpses of persons and objects. In fact, in arranging this interior we tried to produce that "round the corner" feeling that destroys the sense of barrenness felt when every detail of a large room is seen at a glance. The fluted columns and pilasters were ornamented four or fi\'e feet from the floor with inset pressed wood in appropriate design. Ancestral Portrait Gallery. At one side was a long corridor dignified by the term "Ancestral Hall," its ceiling slightly groined, and over the portraits of "cavalier and ladye faire" were grouped pike, asbolt, hauberk, and cuirass bat- tered and slashed in battle before the beginning nf our present Ameri- can civilization. Integral with the living room was the red, quarry-tiled loegia, with its chimney corner, settle, and easy chair. As many meals were to be eaten in the open it also connected with the serving pantry. A NOFEL BOOKSHELF 219 .•as The music room, carpetless, pictureless, and almost draperyless complying as far as might be with little known acoustic laws, and wa: so placed as to be neither over damp nor over dry, too hot nor too cold,, and instruments were kept away from outside walls. Library. The tones of the driftwood fire were the keynote to the color- ing in the library, and a sense of ease and comfort permeated every corner. Hooks everywhere, with bookcases con\'enient to the pair of big davenports that right-angled the fireplace proclaimed the book lover. Over the mantel in burnt wood ^vas traced the sage advice: "First think out your work, then work out your thought," one corner stone of all accomplishment. The motto habit also invaded porch-room, den and billiard room as seen in: "Fait ce que voudrais," and "Usted esta en su casa." But of greater interest than all others was that ancient Egyptian motto that may have arched the library wall of the builder or architect of Cheops — "A storehouse medicine of the mind." No mottoes wxre car\'ed in stone or wood, but admitted of change or elimination whenever tiresome. A mezzanine floor at one end of the library, reached by a prixate stair, made the cosiest sort of a writing nook, ventilation being accomplished through a chimney flue. A Novel Bookshelf. Bookshehes built con\eniently low allowed pictures hung at eye line. They were fitted with narrow, leather flap dust guards. The unusual and attractive effect of a long perfectly level and uninter- rupted line of books the entire width of the room was obtained by the pardonable and harmless lapse in taste of setting back the usual four feet apart division supports three mches from the front shelf edge, and filling out the space with short dummy leather backed books securely fastened in place, harmonizing in color with the genuine. The self-locking metal curtains used only at house closing or possible leasing tmies were thoroughh' ventilated at top, bottom, and sides, to dissipate the moisture attracted by leather. The cupboard at the base was wide enough to form a convenient step or ledge, and the upper shelf served to hold minor lares and penates. Bookshelf area was sufficient to satisfy the most exacting bibliophile. Conservatory. Conservatory floor and side walls were white-tiled as in Shore Rocks to contrast with green foliage, and the basin of the fountain held that wonderful water plant, the Victoria Regina, which looks like an enormous pancake with turned-up edge. In one corner was a leather-cushioned, chain-hung seat, embowered in vines. Slate flower benches were held in place by galvanized iron supports, and there was a cement rose border. Electrolier and side lights were of non- 220 HOIV TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE corrosive glass with pendant prisms, upper window sash of leaded glass with a tracery of vines, white tile floor was laid to properly drain, and roof framing beams of galvanized iron painted were to match trim — preferable in appearance to those of stained, reinforced cement. Hidden Stair. My business office had an outside entrance, and connected with the boudoir suite by a hidden stair of quaint design revealed in the wainscot on pressure of a secret spring. This stair opened into a closet on the Hoor above, with invisible lock and hinges and secure fastenings. Detached Fireproof Den. Separated from the house by an enclosed tiled court of less than a dozen feet in width, but adjoining the office, was a fireproof den of iron, cement and terra cotta construction, electrically protected at all outlets and with iron barred and shuttered windows. Dining Room. A dining room of generous size made possible a large breakfast bay across whose over beam at entrance was drawn a portiere and here knight and ladye sat at a real "round table." The ceiling was crossed with six heavy beams and side walls were wainscoted to the ceiling in square panels of quartered oak. Fruit and game pictures were tabu, but in a light that best suited it hung our "Jungfrau." The oak trim was that indefinable shade of faded gray made by sand, sun, and wave, as seen in some storm-tossed bit of beach wreckage. Two doors connected dining room and butler's pantry, each with an inset of six bv six inch translucent glass, one fitted with rim-protected dish shelves on pantry side. Swinging on a pivot, dishes could be swerved to either room, and service shelves between pantry and kitchen operated in like manner. The butler's pantry cupboard had sliding doors with curved upper muntins, shelves of varied width and height, with drawers beneath the working shelf, and storage lockers to ceiling. The radiator was in the form of a shelved plate warmer. The Loggia. One loggia practically open on three sides had ten glass doors which were replaced with screens in summer, a fireplace opening ten feet wide, roughly forged and hammered iron andirons, and fire tools six feet high. The floor of bricks laid narrow side up in geometrical design on a four foot deep tar protected cement foundation suitably underdrained sloped toward a manhole. Dry cement was dusted between the bricks, and hose turned on it, after which e\'ery vestige of cement was immediately scrubbed from the surface which was then left to dry and harden. THE GIJNT HEARTHSTONE 221 A ramp connecting veranda and belvedere was easier to climb and far safer at dusk than steps, danger of slipping being eliminated by tiling with hard, rough cast, square bricks. The Log Cabin. At one time it was humoroush" suggested that we give up the modern semi-Dutch kitchen and duplicate that of my grandsire, Robert Stewart of Gloucester, ^Massachusetts, with its hewn beams, wide fireplace, crane, trammels, turnspit, and a brick oven in which to bake the Be\'erly beans. The scheme was finally relegated to the log cabin built on one of the outlying crags of Pinnacle. Motoring to Haverhill, we took the measurements of the kitchen in the old Whittier homestead, practically a duplicate of grandfather Stewart's. And "lest we forget," just a word about that log cabin built in Brobdignagian proportions. There we reveled in old-fashioned what- nots, lowboys and tallboys, bouldered stone fireplaces, and "sich." For an armoire we used the trunk of horse hair with drawers in the front and brass nails on top, proclaiming the fact that my great- great grandfather labeled it in 1708 — probably just before some momentous and much-talked of thirty-mile stage trip to Boston t(jwn. On the hand-wrought nails in rough-hewn beams of this log cabin hung seed popcorn and red peppers, matchlock and powder horn. Where the logs of which it was built showed on the interior they were peeled and varnished — a vandal act, 1 grant, but worms and woodtick intruders mu*