WITH HINTS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT NATHANIEL HILLYER EGLESTON NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE 1878 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1 878, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE ANDREW JACKSON DOWNING, WHOSE WRITINGS HAVE DONE SO MUCH FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR COUNTRY LIFE, AND TO INSPIRE OUR PEOPLE WITH A TASTE FOR RURAL ENJOYMENTS, THESE ESSAYS ARE GRATEFULLY Jnscribeb. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Love of the open country an Anglo-Saxon trait. Increases with age. An instinct of nature. Lack of appreciation of rural life, how account- ed for. Improvement in this respect in recent years. Influence of poets and essayists Page 7 CHAPTER I. VILLAGE LITE AS IT 18 AND AS IT SHOULD BE. General beauty of our older villages, particularly those of New England. Home-like appearance. Tokens of civilization and culture. Room for improvement. Schools and education. False ideas of the aim of life. Worldly success too highly estimated. Simple tastes. Possibilities. Ideal of rural life. Hints and suggestions 11 CHAPTER II. TOWN AND COUNTRY. City and country compared. Tributes of poets and philosophers to the country. Varro, Horace, Lord Bacon. Yet a strong and increasing flow of population to the city. One third of the people living in cities and towns. Disproportionate growth of city and country. Houses and farms deserted. Actual decline of popidation in some towns. De- cline in character also. Educating and civilizing forces lessened or lost. No community. The city, also, unduly crowded. Life in the city burns fast 1!) ji CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. A DOUBLE INJURY. The country depopulated; the city overcrowded. Balance lost. City and country both needed. Mutually dependent. The city stimula- tive of enterprise. Great undertakings dependent upon cities and towns. Value of New York or London in this respect. Atlantic Telegraph. Pacific Railroad. Cities not "great sores." Villages not necessarily Arcadias of innocence Page 25 CHAPTER IV. CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATING OF TOWNS. Causes of over- population. Business considerations will not account for it. Country dull. Lack of society. Visitors from the city ready to go back to it again. Abandoned country-seats. Servants will not stay in the country. Rush of others to the city. General movement of life in the country slow. Lack of recreation and amusements. Soci- ety more precious than money or lands 30 CHAPTER V. DULNESS OF THE COUNTRY. Country ought not to be dull. Attractions of nature. Poets delight in the country, and are perpetually singing its charms. Bryant, Words- worth. The poet's eye and feeling wanted. Abundant natural sources of delight in the country. Twofold problem : to bring people into contact with each other and into communion with nature 38 CHAPTER VI. MEANS AND OCCASIONS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. Social gatherings to be encouraged. Fault of parents in this respect. Local attachment to be encouraged. Local interest to be developed. Special days and occasions to be observed. Farmers' Clubs, social dinners, fairs and festivals, lectures, concerts, and games 44 CONTENTS. Hi CHAPTEK VII. VILLAGE-IMPROVEMENT SOCIETIES. Benefit of associated action. Importance of some organization. May be simple. Name unimportant. Do first what can be done most united- ly. Plant trees. Make walks. Care for the cemetery. Avoid at- tempting too much at once. One thing at a time. Hasten slowly. Both sexes to be enlisted. Refining influence of woman Page 52 CHAPTER VIII. THE LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. Example of a village-improvement society. Its history and methods of working. Results. Pecuniary gain. By-laws and regulations of the Association 60 CHAPTEK IX. TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. Trees the universal charm of the country. Their beauty, grace, and grandeur. Pleasure of tree - planting. Lord Bacon's testimony. Great variety of trees in our country. Which to plant. Varieties at Washington. Value of evergreens. Beauty of the hemlock. How to plant trees. Caution against over-planting. Too much shade to be avoided. Need of sunshine. Space for growth and effect 71 CHAPTER X. VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. Great value for purposes of adornment. Vine the emblem of grace and beauty. Adapted to all places. Great variety of vines. How much a vine will do for the embellishment of a place. Climbing roses. Trumpet creeper. Wistaria. Hop-vine. Convolvulus. Clematis. Honeysuckle. Virginia creeper. Woodbine. Vines for indoor cult- ure ; for screens SG iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. FRUITS AND FLOWERS. Flowers a sign of taste and culture. Their abundance. Love of them to be encouraged. Caution against cultivating too many kinds. A few choice ones better than many inferior. Best disposal for effect. Avoid unpleasant contrasts of color. Masses on a lawn. Mounds and beds of intricate pattern to be avoided. Indoor cultivation. Winter plants. Cheerful influence. Flowers types of beauty. Good fruit al- ways in demand. No danger of over-supply. No product more valu- able in proportion to cost. Conducive to health Page 95 CHAPTER XII. THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. The abode of human beings. Supreme reference to be had to this in its plan. Limitations. House to fit the inmates, not the inmates the house. Family should indicate its character by the house it lives in. Nautilus or periwinkle. The ideal house. Imitations and fashions. Eccentricities. Common-sense the first requisite. Location as affect- ing style. Materials to be used. Site; dampness to be avoided. Hill-side desirable. Southern exposure best. Neighborhood of trees welcome. Style; simple and tasteful, rather than ornate. Nothing for show; everything for use. Advice of architect desirable, even for small buildings. Saving thereby. Color; white to be avoided. Flan to be thoroughly considered. Protection from cold and heat. Ornament; truthfulness. Imitation. Shams. Graining. Use of woods unpainted. Costly houses out of place in the country. Homes rather than show-places 108 CHAPTER XIII. FENCES AND HEDGES. Fences not pleasing objects. Great expense attending them. Statis- tics. Unsocial. Many needless fences. Reasons for removing them CONTENTS. V from near houses. Cattle not to be allowed to go at large. Beauty gained by removal of street fences. Williamstown. South Manches- ter. Greeley. Hedges of two kinds, for fences and for screens. Thorny shrubs and evergreens. Evergreens preferable. Hemlock. Norway Spruce. Arbor-vitae. How to make a hedge Page 134 CHAPTER XIY. LAWNS. Trees and grass the main embellishment of a country place. Common appearance around village dwellings. Wiiat it might be. Beauty of a lawn. How to make one. Preparation of ground. Kind and quanti- ty of seed. After-treatment. Sheep and cattle as lawn-inowers. . 147 WATER. Inadequate use of this element. First physical need of life an abundance of water. Health and cleanliness. ^Esthetic value of water. No landscape complete without it. Effect of even small streams. Cas- cades and fountains. How cheaply attainable. Mohammedan baths and mosques. 155 CHAPTER XVI. SANITARY ASPECTS OF COUNTRY LIFE. DRAINAGE. The country has been considered peculiarly healthy. Cities now in many respects more healthy than the country. Reasons for this. Preventa- ble causes of disease. Typhoid fever. Lessening of the death-rate in London. Great improvement in drainage there. Fevers now more prevalent in the country than in cities. Contamination of air and water; not obvious to the senses. The earth as a filter. Poisonous wells. Sinks and cesspools. Slow poisoning. Death not the greatest evil. Epidemics not so destructive of life as many ordinary diseases. Drains, how to be made. Illustrations... . 164- vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. SANITARY ASPECTS OF COUNTRY LIFE (continued}. VENTILATION. Drainage and ventilation closely connected. Composition of the atmos- phere. Respiration, its uses and effects. Influence of trees and plants on the atmosphere. Animal and vegetable kingdoms correlat- ed. How rapidly air may be contaminated. Difficulty of detecting contamination. Close rooms. Air-tight stoves. Carbonic acid. Weather-strips. Decaying vegetables in cellars. Ventilating-flues. Furnaces. Dangers to be avoided in their use. Open fireplaces the best ventilators. Franklin stoves. Instrument for indicating impuri- ty of the air Page 184 CHAPTER XVIII. SANITARY ASPECTS OF COUNTRY LIFE (continued). CARE OF THE SICK. Physicians. Hospitals. Nurses. Nurses 'often more important than doctors. The nurse the physician's best assistant. Power of recov- ery in human constitution. Patients often killed by ignorant kind- ness. Sick-rooms, what they are and what they should be. Furni- ture. Pictures. Plants. Ventilation. Change of scene impor- tant. Need of trained nurses 199 CHAPTER XIX. CEMETERIES. Regard for the bodies of the dead universal. First use of money was to buy a burial-place. Abraham and Jacob. Egypt and the Pyramids. God's acre. Death a sleep. Modern cemeteries. What may be done for village cemeteries. Old burial-grounds often a disgrace. Good place to begin village improvement. All interested in the com- mon burial-ground. Evil of many burial-places in one village. Ef- fort to concentrate care and attention upon one. Laying out new cemeteries. How it should be done. Receiving -tombs. Burial- services 207 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XX. KOADS AND BRIDGKS. Roads tokens and measures of civilization. Few good roads in our country. Bad location of roads. Effect of grade on draught. Statis- tics. Hills and levels. Over hills or around them. Economy of easy grades. Material of roads. Drainage of roads. Proper form of surface. Illustrations. Embellishment of roads. Trees by the road- side. Street parks. Footways. Pedestrianism a lost art in the country. Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick. Street lamps. Bridges; strength the first requisite. Bridges frequently ugly objects. Beauty may be combined with strength. Bridges in Europe. Rustic bridges Page 217 CHAPTER XXI. PRESERVATION OF WOODLANDS. Wasteful and rapid consumption of forests. Lumber trade. Consump- tion by railroads, furnaces, arts, and manufactures. Fencing and fuel. Effect of destruction of trees on climate, health, and agriculture. Trees as screens from winds. Equalizers of temperature. Effect on rainfall ; on the flow of streams. Removal of forests a cause of floods and droughts. Need of tree-planting. Its profitableness. To be encouraged by law. Forestry. How this matter is managed in Europe. Arbor Day 241 CHAPTER XXII. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-HOUSES. The old school-house. Its site. Little comfort in it. The three R's. Importance of the work done in it. Place of instruction should be beautiful. The teaching should be the best possible. Meaning of education. Proper surroundings of the school-house. Pleasant walks. Trees and flowers. Gardens. Lowell factories. Pictures and other works of art in the school-room. Training the perceptive pow- ers. .. . 270 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTEK XXIII. THE VILLAGE CHURCH. The church as it often is. Little architectural beauty. Site. Exposed to sun and wind. Uncomfortable and cheerless. What is done in the church. How much worship there. Sensational preaching. Minister and parish. Loose relation. System of terrorism. Minority gov- erns. Churches managed on commercial rather than religious prin- ciples. Picture of a different scene. Building simple but tasteful. Walls ivy-hung. Interior arrangements. Order and style of services. Precious and lasting influence Page 282 CHAPTEE XXIY. THE VILLAGE LIBRARY. Secret of success in establishing libraries. A good start important. A new educating influence in the community. Sketch of such a libra- ry. Many other things group -around it. Lectures, concerts, reading and social rooms. The basis of a village-improvement society 295 CHAPTEK XXY. WORK AND PLAT. Americans a hard-worked people. Should be more of the play element. More in our systems of education. Natural sciences. Relaxation a duty. Best results of life depend upon it. Country boys broken down by over-work. More holidays desirable. Games and sports 307 CHAPTEE XXVI. OUR VILLAGE FESTIVAL. " Thanksgiving " a festival of best character. Pre-eminently a family festival. Appropriate symbol of the family spirit. How best observed. Religion the crown of the festivity. Illustration. Peculiarly the village festival 318 " Would I a house for happiness erect, Nature alone should be the architect; She'd build it more convenient than great, And, doubtless, in the country choose her seat." COVVLEY. " In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleas- ant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth." MILTON: Tractate of 'Education. INTRODUCTION. "I never had any other desire so strong and so like to covetousness as that one which I have had always that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them, and study of nature ; And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and intire to lie, In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty." COWLEY. THE love of the open country, the fields, the woods, the streams, seems to be a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon trait, and to have come down to us even from our Teutonic ancestors. The historian Tacitus, in his Germania, has noticed the difference in this respect between the peo- ple of that country and the Eomans, and says of the former, " They live apart, each by himself, as woodside, plain, or fresh spring attracts him." But it is in Eng- land that this love of the country has reached the high- est development. The Englishman lives in the town or city only under protest, and is all the while claiming the country as his true home. Our people, so far as they are of English descent, have the same inherited trait. The child is hardly out of leading-strings before he fairlv revels in the scenes of rural life, if he has the 8 INTRODUCTION. opportunity; and, though this delight of early days may be seemingly supplanted by the occupations or pleasures of maturer years, it is yet very sure to assert itself from time to time, and usually with a strength that increases with our years. To many a one chafed by the cares and anxieties of busy life in the city or town, the one hope that has buoyed him up and enabled him to keep a cheerful spirit amid his struggles has been that of a home to be secured by-and-by, on the old ancestral farm, perhaps, where the memory of boyish days and boyish pleasures exhales a perpetual aroma ; or, on some other favored spot, where he may look out upon trees and rocks and sky and clouds, cultivate his acres at his own will, and, after the gentle and unexciting toils of the day, be lulled to rest by the "Liquid lapse of murmuring streams." And is it not the token of man's essential kinship with nature, and of his true dignity, that he has such longings for the aspects of natural scenery ; that more and more he cleaves to the earth, loves to press the sod with his feet in daily tread, and to engage, though it may be with feeble hand, in the occupations of country life ? Is there not the manifestation of one of the best feelings of his nature in this longing in his advancing years his second childhood, as we call it to throw himself again upon the bosom of "Mother Earth?" That second childhood is the time of man's return, so commonly, to the purity and healthfulness of feeling INTRODUCTION. 9 which are the special mark and the true glory of our opening days. And so, though it may sometimes be accompanied by bodily feebleness, it is really the ripen- ed glory of life, as it stands calm and serene, after the manifold discipline of earlier and more active years, the successes and disappointments which have attended our various occupations ; when we have learned by experi- ence what is essential to our happiness and what is only adventitious ; and when we turn from the personal and selfish conflicts of the world around us, and find pleas- ure in the kindred openness and unselfishness of little children, and in communion with nature, and through it with Him who framed its diverse forms. It must be confessed, however, that in many eases we live amid the beauties and glories of the natural world, but, " having eyes, see not," or only half see at the best. "Ask the connoisseur," says Ruskin, "who has scam- pered over all Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that he cannot tell you ; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you whether they are like nature or not." So we have known a whole roomful of farmers, and farm- ers' wives and daughters, to puzzle themselves over a bunch of common corn-tassels on a mantel, utterly un- able to tell what they were, though familiar with them all their lives. It was simply because they had never look- ed at them except in the hazy, indefinite way in which so many look at most things, and so were unable to rec- B 10 INTRODUCTION. ognize these well-known objects when removed from the cornfield to the drawing-room. These are only a few illustrations of a very common defect a neglect to use faculties aright as a consequence of which we fail to find in natural objects many delights which they were designed to afford and which they are ready to give us. Everything, therefore, which helps us to see nature with appreciative eyes is to be welcomed. Much has been accomplished in recent years in this direction by the wide diffusion, through the press, of what our most tasteful and discriminating writers have had it in their hearts to say. We have followed our poets and essay- ists into the fields and woods and along the sounding shore. The greatly increased facilities of travel, also, have brought multitudes into the presence of some of the most impressive natural scenes, and wrought upon them, thereby, a lasting and precious influence. The pleasant aspects of rural life have thus been presented to view, and an interest in rural scenes has been awak- ened which gives promise of most beneficial results. If the following essays shall help any to a better ap- preciation of country life, or aid in making that life more nearly what its ideal should be, the object of the writer will be gained. WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS., June, 1878. VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTEE I. VILLAGE LIFE AS IT 18 AND AS IT SHOULD BE. "For it is not in great cities nor in the confined shops of trade, but principally in agriculture, that the best stock or staple of men is grown. It is in the open air in communion with the sky, the earth, and all liv- ing things that the largest inspiration is drunk in, and the vital energies of a real man constructed. The modern improvements in machinery have facilitated production to such a degree that when they become dif- fused through the world, only a few hands, comparatively, will be requisite in the mechanic arts ; and those engaged in agriculture, being proportion, ally more numerous, will he more in a. condition of ease. Here opens a new and sublime hope. If a state can maintain the practice of a pure morality, and can unite with agriculture a taste for learning and science and the generous exercises I have named, a race of men will ultimately be raised up having a physical volume, a native majesty and force of mind, such as no age has yet produced." BUSHNELL. HARDLY any one can pass through the villages of the older portions of our country, particularly those of New England in the warmer seasons of the year especially, when the vegetation is in its freshness and luxuriance without being impressed by their general beauty, and feeling that many of them are choice places for family 12 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. homes. The happy combination of hill and valley, mountain and plain ; the dense masses of woods crown- ing so many of the more elevated portions; the wide stretches of meadow with their emerald beauty ; and the great abundance of streams of water, from the broad rivers to the almost threadlike springs which gush out of the ground at such brief intervals, these, together with a reasonable fertility of soil a fertility which sufficiently rewards honest industry while it does not in- vite speculation nor encourage idleness and a climate which, though somewhat rigorous, is probably as health- ful as any, combine to make New England one of the choicest dwelling-places of man. If to these we add the tokens of peculiar civilization and culture which char- acterize New England the influences of the school- house and the church, which have been felt here from the beginning, and which every traveller sees and feels, however hurriedly he may pass along we shall not be wrong in thinking that few places on the globe are bet- ter fitted to furnish homes of the highest type. The fertile plains of the West may offer the prospect of a more rapid accumulation of wealth. The warmer lati- tudes of our Southern States may appeal to the senses and tempt with their languid charms, but " Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripened in our northern sky." It was something besides accident that swept the Mayflower from her destined port in more southern VILLAGE LIFE AS IT IS AND AS IT SHOULD BE. 13 waters and landed her precious freight of souls on the coast of New England, there to plant the seeds of a civilization that was to overspread a continent. Man comes to his best only through a struggle ; and to wres- tle with storms and rocks seems to be about the best gymnastic for the development of the sturdiest and most effective character. The man who has his home in New England certainly need not envy the dwellers in other places. They may have more of ease in their lot. Their fields may yield a larger harvest and with less demand of labor; but it is likely to be at the ex- pense of temptations or deprivations which more than counterbalance such advantages. "A man's life con- sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." It is the quality, not the quantity, which decides the case. " He most lives, Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." Whatever inspires the best thought and feeling is to be desired rather than mere fertility of soil or balminess of air. And New England has, in her character and scenery, as well as in her institutions, a perpetual stim- ulation of what is best. But, after all, our village life, whether in New Eng- land or elsewhere, is not yet what it ought to be. Much of it is crude and low and gross. We have not improved our advantages as we might and should have done. Culture, as yet, has made comparatively little advancement. The school, which is the boast of our 14 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. country, has not yet done for us what it should have done. It has done much ; but how much more remains to be accomplished before we can claim to be a truly educated people ! Then, the lessons to be learned in the school of nature have been learned only in small part. How few have their eyes open to see the forms and read the language of the world they daily live in ! How little impression do the objects of nature make upon the mass of people ! The higher faculties of the soul too often lie in a dormant state. We wait for a better time. In too many of our village homes the life is of a low and animal type ; the energies are too much on a level with those of the cattle. It is too often a dig- ging drudgery for the sake of food or for the accumu- lation of money, unrelieved by any higher object or the cultivation of the refining tastes. The body is cared for, while the mind and heart are neglected. Books are few and too commonly of the trashy sort. Or if there is any waking-up of the mind, it is in being sharp at a bargain. We are often far more ready to overreach than we are to help a fellow-man ; and many a father will be found to give indubitable signs of pleasure at seeing his child get the better of another by some trick of shrewdness or audacity. It argues a capacity in the child to get on in the world, and that, in the estimation of many, is the chief end of man. Meantime the soft- er, gentler feelings are hardly thought worthy of culti- vation ; the finer tastes are not developed ; and the child grows up too often a dull, hard, selfish man ; his whole VILLAGE LIFE AS IT IS AND AS IT SHOULD BE. 15 life "of the earth, earthy," when it might be all the while so much higher, better, and happier. And so, in the cases where our village life has reach- ed a superior development, how charming is the sight ! Some simple little cottage, lacking even paint, it may be, but wearing the look of neatness all about it, needs no opening of the door to tell that all is neatness within. A few flowers under the window, an unmistakable look of thoughtfulness and tender feeling stamped upon ev- erything, even upon the grass in the door-yard how much more delightful is the sight of such a place than that of so many of our ambitious houses, set up in their stilted fashion, unmeaning masses of brickwork and carpentry, the bold advertisements of newly acquired riches, as vulgar as they are expensive ! And then, when one goes within such an unpretending cottage, and finds it at once the home of mind and heart everything plain and simple, perhaps, but taste making all beautiful, and, with more than the power of Midas, converting everything it touches into something better than gold ; when he finds only a few books, it may be, but these of solid character, and evidently for use rather than show, and the talk not vulgar gossip or neighbor- hood scandal, but of a character thoughtful and elevat- ing, pure and good one feels how precious to the coun- try and the world are such homes. If our village homes were generally of this character, what a renovated country would ours be! If even a majority of. the houses in any of our country villages 16 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. were really homes such as we have just sketched, how changed and heightened in character would the life of such a .village become ! The many petty jealousies and causes of dispute which now so commonly exist, follow- ed, as they so frequently are, by open animosities and disgraceful quarrels, would be prevented by the preva- lence of a general kindliness of feeling, and a mutual regard for each other's interests in place of the selfish- ness which now so often reigns. The village households would become, so to speak, members of a larger family the village family and a common interest and com- mon feeling would characterize the place and regulate the style and tonp of life, while yet leaving the freest play for individual tastes and feelings. In such a com- munity a thousand good influences would surround the young from the beginning, and give them such helps towards a noble spirit of life that their advancement in character would be sure and rapid. Many sources of entertainment and improvement would be found in such a community which in others are almost unknown, and life would become a nobler, sweeter, happier thing than it is or can be in most communities as they now are. And so, perhaps, we shall be thought to be wasting time upon an ideal which is never, or at best only in the far-away distance, to become real. But if that ideal is only to be realized, if at all, at some distant time, this should not prevent us from doing something to secure the fruits which lie in that direction. Here is a man, for instance, who has the reputation of being a good VILLAGE LIFE AS IT IS AND AS IT SHOULD BE. 17 farmer. He has been diligent and industrious. He prides himself on raising as good crops as any of his neighbors, and his fields are kept in good condition. He is not ashamed to have them looked at. And as the result of his labor he has a handsome sum laid away in the bank, or where it is equally safe. But perhaps in his busy industry upon the farm, the surroundings of his house have been somewhat forgotten. Perhaps the sight which meets his eyes, and the eyes of his family, most frequently is that of a door-yard filled with the waste material of farm and house, with carts and ploughs, some serviceable, and some for many years past use; with unsightly heaps of wood. and chips lying about in dis- orderly confusion. There are, it may be, no convenient walks by which one can get to the well with comfort, or to the road when the rain has been falling or the dew is heavy on the sward. Perhaps the ground about the house shows a growth of weeds rather than grass. The fences, it may be, are not kept in as good repair just around the dwelling as they are out upon the farm, where the protection of the crops seems more to demand them. The gates, seldom closed, have fallen down. In short, there is about the house of this well-to-do and successful farmer an air of neglect and carelessness. Things look untidy. The poultry, and possibly the pigs, have free range of the door-yard, and there is no place where the wife and daughters can go and sit down comfortably out-of-doors in pleasant weather when the household work is done. They are fairly imprisoned at home. 18 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. Can there not be an improvement here? A few days' work in the autumn season, after the harvest toil is over, or in early springtime, before other work presses, would change many such places for the better. Let there be a determination that the home of the family shall at least look as well as the home for the cattle. Let the unsightly bushes and weeds in the fence corners be cut away and rooted up, so that they shall not appear again another year. Let the pigs and the poultry go to their own place. Let the ruins of old carts and wagons, ploughs and scrapers, be broken up and conveyed to the wood-pile and the receptacle for .old iron. Let the wood and chips be gathered and properly housed. Let the rubbish of any and every sort be removed to its ap- propriate place. Let trees and shrubs be planted, and the green grass be invited to grow, where now perhaps only dock and plantain thrive. Let a few roses and vines be set within easy reach of doors and windows. How soon will such touches of taste and care change the whole aspect of the place, and change perhaps the character of the occupants as well ! for the cultivation of our grounds is often a cultivation of ourselves. It is an easy step, also, from the improvement of one's immediate surroundings to the endeavor to do something for the entire village where one lives. But in regard to what is desirable, both for the individual and for the community as a whole, we shall speak more at large in subsequent chapters. TOWN AND COUNTRY. 19 CHAPTER II. TOWN AND COUNTRY. "God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.'' COWLEY. THE pointed contrast between life in the open coun- try and life in the city, set forth in the above quotation from one of our elder poets and essayists, has been made by many another writer. Indeed, it is one of the com- monplaces of literature. We may trace it all the way from Cowper's "God made the country, and man made the town;" and Lord Bacon's opening of his "Essay on Gardens" with the words " God Almighty first planted a garden," up to old Varro, who, in his De Re Rustica, says, " Di- mna natura dedit agros, ars humana cedificavit urbes" Essayists, poets, travellers, and philosophers alike have been wont to pay tribute to the charms and attractions of the country as compared with the scenes of city life. Every schoolboy who has gained admission to college is familiar with the "Beatus ille qui procul negotiis" of Horace ; and it is almost the singularity of the many- sided Macaulay that he seems to have cared little for the aspects of external nature, content if he could be allowed 20 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. to live in London, and walk from day to day the old his- toric streets and courts of the " City," or busy himself amid the books and manuscripts of the British Museum. A poet himself has said that "Poetry was born among the shepherds," and that " one might as well undertake to dance in a crowd as to make good verses in the midst of noise and tumult." And yet, with all literature and philosophy against it, there is a large and ever-increasing practical vote in fa- vor of the town as a place of living. Yery good peo- ple, also, some of the best and most intelligent, seem to prefer the man-made town, to the God-made country. There is, moreover, a manifest and increasing tendency of population to concentrate in towns and cities. One third of the people of our new and essentially agricultur- al country are already thus gathered. The growth of towns and cities is disproportionately rapid as compared with that of the villages and hamlets of the open country. And this is the fact not only with us, but with many older nations. London and Berlin never before were growing so rapidly as now. The same is true of other European cities cities which have no such ample spaces around them as ours have, no such spaces from which to draw their population, and in supplying the wants of whose people they may find a sustaining market for the commodities of their mercantile and manufacturing industries. Nor is it, with us, the new towns and cities of the West merely that are making disproportionate growth TOWN AND COUNTRY. 21 in population, but the oldest cities of the East are show- ing a like rapid increase. New York, Boston, and Phil- adelphia are populating themselves more rapidly than the country around them, as truly as Chicago and San Francisco. Indeed, so strong is the flow from the coun- try to the cities and manufacturing towns, especially in New England, that in many of the country districts there is not only a comparatively slow growth of popu- lation, but an actual decline. The sight is only too com- mon, and painful as it is common, among our Eastern villages, of houses going to decay or actually fallen down, with none to take their place. The people who once dwelt in them have left them, and no children of theirs have come in their stead. The farms, once teeming with grain and cattle, are now, in many cases, over- grown with bushes or young forests, or only partly kept under cultivation by some immigrant from Ireland, Ger- many, or Canada, who has bought them because they were cheap, and too undesirable to find any other pur- chaser. The last census has made some surprising revelations in this respect. The population of our hill-towns es- pecially seems to have slidden down, in large measure, into the valleys, along whose streams have grown up im- portant centres of manufacture. As a consequence, not only have many of the older villages not held their own in population, but they have lost in character as well as in people. The more enterprising having gone away, all the movements of society become less vigorous in 22 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. consequence. There is less wealth, therefore less ex- penditure upon roads, upon houses and buildings of every kind, upon schools and churches, upon books and papers, and in travel and intercourse with other places, which is such a fruitful source of intelligence. All these educating and civilizing forces are lessened in quantity, if not entirely lost. So, there will no longer be found rising up in such a place from time to time, as formerly, one and another fit to stand as leaders in so- ciety, and to have an influence reaching perhaps far be- yond the local limits of the place. There will be no skilful lawyer or wise magistrate, no highly cultivated clergyman, fit to be looked up to as an authority in all matters of general knowledge as well as in his special professional studies. The place can no longer, by its character, or the compensation which it offers, attract the presence or command the services of such. The great law of supply and demand rules here as elsewhere, and forbids it. And this decay once begun, the tendency of things becomes strong in this direction. For a time the influence of certain families of culture and of wealth may successfully resist the downward course of things, and hold up the life and spirit of the village. But it is only for a few years. The next generation will very likely feel the downward drag of the community around them too severe to be longer endured, and sons and daughters, though loath to leave the consecrated home scenes, will take their departure to more congenial places. TOWN AND COUNTRY. 23 And now there will be less to hold any to the place. The depopulation will go on with accelerated speed. Family after family will disappear. Their places, if fill- ed at all, will probably be tilled with aliens, with people of a lower grade of culture, and such as have no ties of relationship or of historical connection with the place which might form a bond of union with the existing society. Thus the attractions of social interest are less- ened all the while. Social life stagnates. The place is no longer a community as it once was, but a loose ag- gregation of individual atoms, as it were, each living by, and for, and in himself. There is no longer any esprit de corps, such as there should be in any community, making it an occasion of pride to every resident there that he can say that it is his home. In fact, it will sometimes be found that the process of decline has gone so far, and the change become so great, in some of our once honored villages, that the present inhabitants seem at the best but dwarfs and pigmies under the great name of the place where they live, and where great men and noble women once dwelt. Such is the tendency to check the growth of many of our villages ; and as this is checked by emigration, the growth of the larger towns and cities is proportionally increased. They are the receptacles not only of the en- terprising, but of the discontented and dissatisfied. So, in addition to those who may be said to be needed for the proper life and work of the city, or the trading and manufacturing town, there is a large inflow upon them 24 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. of those who are not needed, who crowd every avenue of industry, make life a hot competition for gain, and even a struggle for very existence, and many of whom, in the end, become a burden upon society, if not an ab- solute danger to it. Life burns fast in the crowded city and the busy mart. These places must be recruited from the open country. But more recruits offer than are wanted. More recruits offer than will fill the ranks. There is a large mass gathered in every such place, who can only be mere camp-followers, a poor, or rough and lawless set, who live upon the waste or the plunder of the great moving and effective army. A DOUBLE INJURY. 25 CHAPTER III. A DOUBLE INJUKY. "In town one can find the swimming-school, the gymnasium, the danc- ing-master, the shooting-gallery, opera, theatre, and panorama ; the chem- ist's shop, the museum of natural history, the gallery of fine arts ; the national orators, in their turn; foreign travellers, the libraries, and his club. In the country he can find solitude and reading, manly labor, cheap living, and his old shoes ; moors for game, hills for geology, and groves for devotion. " EMERSON. IT is easy to see that the tendency of which we have been speaking in the previous chapter works a double harm. The country is depopulated ; the city and town are overcrowded. The proper balance of population, and so the proper adjustment of life, of business, and of society, is lost. Life is not so desir- able either in city or country as it otherwise would be. In the city, and largely because of the overcrowd- ing, it is feverish and frivolous, and, sometimes, fero- cious. The extremes of good and evil there meet. In the country, on the other hand, life is often dull and enfeebled and greatly deficient in the social ele- ment. The great expanses of the country want more people, or more contact of the people with each other. The city, also, wants the country. It is dependent upon it for its very existence. In its rapid consump- C 26 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. tion of life, it must draw from the country a supply of fresh mind and muscle which it cannot produce from itself ; and it must have the products of open field and forest, and of the mineral deposits of the wide country, to furnish the staple of its trade and manufacture. The country, also, needs the city. It needs it as the ultimate market for its surplus prod- ucts, as the place of exchange by means of which the productions of one clime or one continent are made the possible possession of every other, and by which the cottager of Yermont or of Oregon may make the whole world tributary to his daily comfort. The country needs the city also for the stimulating power of its concentrated enterprise, its quick and intelli- gent action, its speedy reception and utilization of every new thought and every wise plan. Great na- tional undertakings are dependent very much upon great cities and towns. The country villages of New York would never have built the Erie Canal, though all felt its desirableness as a means of getting the products of their fields and forests to market. Our villages would never have given us the Pacific Rail- road or the Atlantic Telegraph. They would never have given us the daily newspaper, or the daily me- teorological reports of the Signal Service Bureau, for which he who ploughs the open sea, and he who ploughs the open field, look daily with expectant in- terest. They would never have originated, certainly never have earned on with efficiency, our great mis- A DOUBLE INJURY. 27 sionary and philanthropic enterprises. The Ameri- can Board of Foreign Missions, or any of our Home Missionary Societies, would die, or dwindle to a feeble- ness next to death, if they were dependent for success upon their village supporters alone. The mainspring of these, and of all great enterprises, is in the populous, busy town or city. It is our merchant princes by whom these are originated or pushed forward. It is they who send our commerce to the ends of the world, who cover continents with iron highways, and with their telegraphic wires fulfil the promise of Puck "I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes." It is they, largely, who endow our colleges and schools of highest grade, who push geographical research, if possible, even to the poles, and who are ready to send the Gospel of Christ wherever the most adventurous explorer shall find a fellow-man. Let us not forget, then, in our love of the country, or when we hear its praises spoken, how much all owe to the city and the busy town. Let us not forget what treasures of power, of wealth, of civilization, of enter- prise, of art, of science, of philanthropy, and of religion are garnered up in such a metropolis as New York or London. Why, they are worlds in themselves. The whole earth is there in miniature. It is easy to talk of cities as being "great sores" and the like; to say they are slums of foulness, haunts of vice and crime ; 28 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. to point to their thousands of paupers, and their thou- sands more ready for any violence and to prey like tigers upon the peace and order of society. It is easy, also, and too common, to talk of the purity and inno- cence of those who dwell in the open country, when it may be questioned whether, if the same number of people in the country as compose the city's population were to be suddenly confined to the city's space, and their character and conduct as closely scrutinized, there would not be found as much of evil as among the ha- bitual residents of the city, though not, perhaps, in the same forms. Says the author of " Recreations of a Country Parson," "I have long since found that the country, in this nineteenth century, is by no means a scene of Arcadian innocence ; that its apparent sim- plicity is sometimes dogged stupidity ; that men lie and cheat in the country just as much as in the town ; and that the country has even more of mischievous tit- tle-tattle ; that sorrow and care and anxiety may quite well live in Elizabethan cottages grown over with honeysuckle and jasmine, and that very sad eyes may look forth from windows round which roses twine. People may pace up and down a country lane, be- tween fragrant hedges of blossoming hawthorn, and tear their neighbors' characters to very shreds." Cer- tainly we could not do without our cities except at the peril of almost all that distinguishes our present life from that of the Dark Ages. Our civilization, with all that we include in that term, what is it, as the very A DOUBLE INJURY. 9 word tells us, but the character which properly belongs to the civis the one who lives in the city ? While, therefore, we deplore the tendency to leave the country for the city, so far as it results in the de- pletion of the country and the overcrowding of cities and towns, and the disturbance of the proper balance between them, and while the object of our writing is to do something, if possible, to counteract this, it will not be, we trust, out of any lack of appreciation of the importance of the city, or the peculiar and unequalled privileges which it holds in possession. 30 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTER IV. CAUSES OF OVEK-POPULATING OF TOWNS. " Man in society is like a flower Blown in its native bed ; 'tis there alone His faculties, expanded in full bloom, Shine out ; there only reach their proper use." COWPER. "Plain living and high thinking are no more." WORDSWORTH. Lsr looking for the causes which occasion the strong tendency of population towards the city or town, and the readiness to forsake the country for them, it is evi- dent that business considerations alone are not suffi- cient to account for it. The demands, or the possibil- ities even, of trade would not draw the masses so strongly to the city, nor would the prospect of in- creased gain lead them in such crowds to the manu- facturing town. Of course, cities and trading and manufacturing towns are naturally built up as the country around them grows. They are places for the exchange or manufacture of the products of the soil. They can exist only as these first exist. This is their foundation, and they should grow as the country grows in population and productiveness. But, as we have CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATING OF TOWNS. 31 seen, and as is only too apparent to every one, cities and towns are growing far more rapidly than the country, and at the expense of the villages, as well as to the detriment of the cities and towns themselves. The reasons of this lie deeper than the simple induce- ments of trade. If those who come from their city homes as tem- porary visitors to the country, or even a majority of those whose habitual residence is in the country, were asked to characterize country life by a single word, they would pronounce it dull. The occasional visitor from the city finds the change so great that life in the coun- try has for a time the zest of novelty and striking con- trast. All scenes and habits are new. There is a piquancy and flavor in everything that for a while de- lights. The commonest things provoke attention be- cause new. But this soon passes away, and he begins to weary of the new scenes and objects. Our city guests of the summer, for the most part, are so ready to bid good-bye to the country that they willingly lose the most charming portion of the country year, the ripening days of autumn, when the heats are lessened and the fruits are offering their luscious juices and delicate aromas, and the trees are ready to march out, like a bannered army, in all their gorgeous array of color. And how often does the man who goes to build his villa in the country tire of it in a year or two, and go back to his city home ! As he returns he finds himself moving also with the tide, whereas be- 32 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. fore lie had been struggling against it. There is a gen- eral pressing from country to city. The young men are eagerly looking for any employment that will take them from the farm. They jump at the chance of leaving a good home, where friends and food and clothing are abundant, for the store, where they may sell dry-goods or groceries at a salary which will not enable them to live with comfort, if with decency. Young women will stitch all day, and evening too, in a milliner's shop, and sleep in a garret, rather than give themselves to the wholesome work of housekeeping in the country. Not the smallest or poorest -paid situa- tion in town or city offers but a hundred are ready to take it, while it is a matter of the greatest difficulty to procure competent farm-laborers or tolerable domestic service for the country household. If you ask these people why they are so eager for the town, and so ready to leave the country, their answer, when you fairly get it, is, the country is dull. And by country they mean life in the country, not the visible, material world. The country, as a physical thing, is not dull or uninteresting. In contrast with the uniform streets and blocks of the city or large town, the country is infinitely varied and picturesque, and full of the charm of new and beautiful objects. " There are flowers in the meadow, There are clouds in the sky, Songs pour from the woodland, The waters glide hy ; CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATING OF TOWNS. 33 Too many, too many For eye or for ear, The sights that we see, And the sounds that we hear." It is not the country, physically considered, that is dull, but country life the life of the people who live in the country. Their life is not in keeping with the material world around them. It is not, in a large majority of instances, what life in such a situation ought to be. We throw out of account, of course, the life of the pioneer, the man who is just hewing himself a lodging-place in the forest or breaking up the soil of the prairie now for the first time. The attractions of place or of society are little to be considered in such circumstances. We speak of established communities. And it cannot be denied that in many, if not in most, of our country villages the spirit and usages of society are dull. There is a heavy weight upon the general life, which presses fearfully upon the spirits of the young especially. The movement of things in the country is like that of the cattle, sluggish. It may be sure ; it may tend, on the whole, in the right direction. So does that of the cattle. But this is the day of roads and of the locomotive, and the sound of these is in the air and echoing among the hills and valleys, even when they are not in sight. The young hear it, if the old do not, and it stimulates a quickened movement in them, or the desire to be where a quickened movement will be possible to them. 34: VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. Life in the country may be in general on the side of good order, thrift, and virtue, but it is slow and heavy. It drags. It does not readily take the stimulus of new ideas. It does not believe much in improvement. It is content with old methods,- and not much disposed to consider whether there can be any better ones. The general life in the country is unquestionably sluggish. It is withal a life, too much, of dull, hard drudgery. The yoke also comes on the shoulders at an early age with excessive severity ; and the boys, like too many of the colts, are broken down before they reach the years of mature strength and endurance. The late war showed that the town and city boys could endure a strain under which those from the country frequently failed. To this drudgery of country life there is little relief, whether to the man in the field or the woman in the house. Day in and day out, year in and year out, it is very much the same hard, heavy strain. There is little change except from work to idleness or sleep, or perhaps the dull gossip of the neighboring kitchen, or the duller and worse gossip of the store or tavern. The talk is, in large part, the dripping of scandal or story- telling of a low cast. There is little of earnest or high- toned thinking, little grappling with things which are not material. There is little alertness of mind, little of the spirit of inquiry ; as how could there be much, when body and mind are so dragged and spent with the heavy, incessant tug of such an unvarying round of life? * CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATING OF TOWNS. 35 As for amusement and recreation, there is next to none, at least that is worthy of the name. It has been said of the New England villagers particularly that their only recreations are their funeral occasions. There is too much ground for the sarcasm. The very general attendance of country people at funerals is not alto- gether a token of sympathy and respect. It is, in no inconsiderable measure, the assertion by human nature of its right to break away from dull drudgery of the house and the soil, and, as a thinking, feeling being, to become a participant in society. And so you shall see the people, assembled from distant parts of the town, as they stand about the doors before and after the solemn service, hearing and telling the news, shaking hands with a new feeling of brotherhood, and so going home in some sense refreshed, for anything is a refresh- ment and recreation which takes one out of the rut of a dull, plodding life. This getting together at a funeral, as also the gathering in company at the church on the Sabbath, is a very important matter, therefore, apart from the religious solemnities of such occasions. If what is solemn leads to the joyful and the genial, through the pleasant interchange of thoughts and feelings on the doorstep or under the horse-sheds, all the better for the people, and none the worse, perhaps, for the worship. It is the easier and more frequent getting together for various purposes and on various occasions, it is the more palpable presence of society which town and city afford, that give them the preference over the country. 36 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. It is the more manifest presence of the human, the more constant and intimate commingling of the human, that, beyond and above all the attractions of fashion or wealth, draws people to the city. Bridget will consent to be shut up in a basement kitchen during work-hours, because, when work-hours are ended, she can quickly have around her a company of like spirits, or can meet them as she goes on her errands to the corner grocery or to the baker, when she will utterly refuse to share with the farmer's wife an ample apartment whose win- dows open upon boundless views of beauty and admit none but healthful airs. It is society, and varied society, which the soul craves, unless its cravings have been so long ungratified that it settles down into an ignorant or enforced contentment with itself and its habitual surroundings. All physical and material things will not make amends for the lack of society, for the commingling of soul with soul. Much as the human being may grasp after what is material, and material as his life may seem to be, he is, after all, a spiritual being, a creature of feelings and sympathies, and all riches cannot satisfy him. Money, land, food, drink, dress ; these are not enough. There must be something more, and something higher communion with his kind, the interchange of thought and feeling with others. This he finds most, and most easily reach- ed, where those of his kind are massed together in the town or city. Here, too, in the large community, socie- ty of the most congenial character is easy to be found. CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATING OF TOWNS. 37 Then, growing out of this consolidation or aggrega- tion, come facilities for various social delights ; such as books, plays, concerts, lectures, and shows of different kinds, reaching in quality through a wide range, which adapts them to all tastes and all grades of feeling and culture. Now, grant that there is an abnormal and unhealthy craving for excitement which impels many to turn away from country life and seek the city with its crowds and varied sights and scenes. Grant, also, that low passions tend thither, because of the easier gratification afforded. Enough remains in the prevalent habit of life in the country to account for the readiness to forsake it for the town. It is not to be wondered at that our boys and girls, not to speak of those older, who have any en- terprise of spirit, should be willing to leave the paternal acres. It is the defective social element of our country life which is the most efficient cause of the depletion of the country and the disproportionate gathering of popu- lation in the large towns and cities. Other causes do their part to occasion this result, but this is the grand and most constantly influential cause. The remedy for the evil, therefore, if remedy there be, is to be applied principally at this point. 38 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTER Y. DTJLNESS OF THE COUNTRY. "Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part." MILTON. "To smell to a fresh turf is wholesome for the body." THOMAS FULLER. LIFE in the country ought not to be dull or unattrac- tive. There is no necessity for it. In certain respects, as we have seen, the city may possess advantages not to be found in the open country. This must be so, else cities would never come into existence. And so to many persons the city or great town must be the most desirable place for residence. But the mass of people dwell, and ever will dwell, in the country. Cities can exist only as there is a country back of them to create and sustain them. They have no self-creative power. " The profit of the earth is for all : the king himself is served by the field." So says the Scripture. Agri- culture, the tilling of the ground, is the bottom and foundation of all life, of all industries, of all enjoy- ments. This dependence of all upon what is produced in the open country is often forgotten, and multitudes who flock to the city, without any legitimate call of business, find that they have escaped discomforts and DULNESS OF THE COUNTRY. 39 troubles which might have been removed, only to meet those far greater and more persistent in character. We might conclude beforehand that the place de- signed by a good Creator for the larger part of man- kind to live in would be as desirable, because as promo- tive of comfort, as any. Nay, it ought to be the most desirable. And so who does not know how the poets, who are the true seers and have the deepest insight of things, are always singing the charms of the country and taking us out with them through woods and fields, and under the open sky, and fixing our gaze upon a thousand delightful objects? The material world be- comes a living thing to them. And thus our own Bry- ant, clinging to the country as he did, resting and may we not say revelling there after his daily business in the city was done, expresses a wide-spread feeling when, in the familiar words of his " Thanatopsis " he says " To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language. For his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And gentle sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware." So Wordsworth says "The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms, were then to me 4:0 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. An appetite a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thoughts supplied, nor any interest Uoborrowed from the eye." Cowper in like manner gives this expression to his feelings in respect to the country : "I never framed a wish, or formed a plan, That flattered me with hopes of earthly bliss, But there I laid the scene. There early strayed My fancy ; ere yet liberty of choice Had found me, or the hope of being free, My very dreams were rural." It were easy, by turning the leaves of our volumes of poetry, to bring the very woods and fields about us, odorous with their scents and vocal with their pe- culiar sounds. And if there were more of this po- etic feeling or sensibility, the country would be more attractive than it is as a place of living. As it is, we often find those who are dwelling amid the most de- lightful scenery quite insensible to its charms. The most beautiful landscape is but "common earth" to many. " Having eyes, they see not, neither do they un- derstand." And one of the problems involved in mak- ing country life properly attractive and giving it its true interest is that of giving people this power to see, the ability to behold what a world of life and beauty they are living in, and so to have all the powers of their souls brought into communion with it, and, through it, with all the creation and with the Creator himself. What is wanted is to lift our country life out of the dull, DULNESS OF THE COUNTRY. 41 mechanical, and monotonous condition in which it is found to so great an extent, and to bring it into a con- dition of inspiration from all the life of nature and so- ciety. The problem is seen to be twofold, therefore to bring those living in our country villages into closer and more frequent contact with one another, and thus to develop the social element which every soul so much needs ; and, secondly, to bring all into contact and communion with nature, and thus give a higher tone and inspira- tion to the life of each and all. The country is dull and irksome to many, and espe- cially to the young, because there are so few occasions of coming together and uniting in common pleasures, and thereby gratifying the social instinct of our nature. We are made for society. We may be absorbed for a time in the busy cares and ambitions of middle life so as to be temporarily oblivious of, or indifferent to, the claims of society. But in our younger, and again in our older years, we feel that life is a partnership affair, that to be alone is not to live. We yearn for our kind. We want to exchange thought and feeling with others. We want to touch hands and to touch hearts. We want to look at pleasant things with other eyes as well as our own, to see and hear in company with others. Now, the too common fact is, that our country vil- lages furnish few opportunities for social intercourse. Life drags on with an almost unvarying round of toil. There is little to break up its monotony. There are D 4:2 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. few sources of rational amusement open to all. And amusement certainly has its place as one of the needs of a truly healthy life, healthy in the largest and best sense. As the cattle cannot profitably be kept in the yoke all the while, no more can the man. The farmer himself will accomplish the most in his farm -work if now and then he gives himself up to some social enjoy- ment. He will be the fresher and more vigorous for it, and he will find more of enjoyment in his life of toil. The young feel a special craving for society. It is, in fact, their life. And it is because this craving of their nature is not adequately gratified, but is even of- ten rudely rebuked, and the means of innocent pleasure denied, that they are so frequently ready to leave home and friends and try the chances of town or city. The son and daughter not only feel the absence of occasions of social enjoyment, but they see father and mother leading a monotonous round of drudgery in the field and in the house alike, with little variation, the joints of the body stiffened prematurely by the steady drag of unremitted work, and the joints of the mind stiffened at the same time by the dull and narrow and unvarying habit of thought. And who can blame them if they shrink back at the prospect of leading such a life them- selves? The wonder is rather that more do not flee from the country. But this may be changed, and should be. The boys and girls at school, or just emerging from it, in the fresh fervor of youth, feel that there is, or ought to be, DULNESS OF THE COUNTRY. 43 something better for them than such a dull, mechanical life as they see most of those around them are living. And they are right in this. Life in the country ought to be full of freshness from youth to oldest age. The life of a farmer ought to be a truly royal life. There is no life more independent or free from wearisome care than his may be. There is none that has more abundant natural resources for delight and for that which will interest and occupy all the faculties of the man. There is none which better affords place for the use of all knowledge, even that which is most scientific. There is none which can supply a larger variety of em- ployments and thereby guard against monotony and dulness more effectually than a life on the broad acres of the open country. The husbandman is king, or may be. It is his own fault if he lives as a serf, or in a way- only to dull and dwarf his higher and better nature. 44 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTER VI. MEANS AND OCCASIONS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. ' ' How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude ! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet." COWPER. RECOGNIZING the deficiency in the social element of country life as that which principally renders it dull and distasteful to so many, and the chief reason why there is such a disposition to forsake the country and crowd the towns and cities with a disproportionate pop- ulation, it is manifest that the first thing to be done, if we would remedy the evil, is to make some resolute en- deavor to improve the social life of our country villages. Something is needed to draw out in the inhabitants of our villages the feeling that they are dwellers together in a common home, and that they have a common inter- est in it and in each other. Something is needed to stimulate into more active exercise the feeling of mutu- al interest and common enjoyment as well as a common responsibility for the general ongoing of things around them. There is need of something to draw the people together, in one way and another, and in larger or smaller numbers, from time to time, old and young, and MEANS AND OCCASIONS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 45 men and women alike, that they may look into each other's faces, and, for the time, engage in some common work or common pleasure, and thereby have the bonds of a common interest and fellow-feeling cemented and strengthened. Something is needed which shall local- ize their feeling and cause their thoughts to gather about the place in which they dwell with a special in- terest, to give them a certain pride in their own village, and make them feel that it is a good and desirable place in which to live ; that if it has not something of celeb- rity and attractiveness, which other places may have, it has yet something which they have not, or has it in bet- ter form and degree. This feeling needs to be cultivated, especially in the young, who naturally have as yet felt the fewest ties of attachment to any place or society, and who are readi- est to move whithersoever the attractions and pleasures of society may be, or seem to be, strongest. Parents, and the older members of our village communities, have been greatly at fault in not cultivating in the young a feeling of interest in, and attachment to, the place in which their home has been fixed. They have been at fault in not having more of it themselves, and in not manifesting more what feeling of this sort they have had. " This is our village ;" " This is our home." Too seldom has there been the feeling which stood ready to vent itself in such words. So far as it has existed, as doubtless it has to a considerable extent, it has been for the most part a dumb and voiceless feeling. As a con- 46 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. sequence, the young have grown up commonly in great ignorance of the place where their very life originated, and, while they may have come to have a respectable knowledge of the geography and history of the world at large, have often been lamentably ignorant of the features and objects of interest in the village where they were born. Many a boy has been able to give a more intelligible account of Patagonia or Greenland than of the town and county of his own residence. Now, what is wanted is something that shall develop the local interest of the dwellers in our villages in one another and in the place where they live ; something to cultivate in old and young alike the feeling of attach- ment to their local home. Almost anything, therefore, is to be encouraged which will serve to bring the peo- ple together. A mountebank show is better than noth- ing. But other and better occasions may easily be had. The national anniversary and Decoration - day might easily be improved in every village, not only as the means of stimulating the feeling of patriotism, but the feeling of local attachment as well. The old "May- day" of our English ancestors might be revived. So, also, farmers' clubs are to be encouraged, or something of the sort, under a different name. These should not only draw the whole village together once a year for a show of the annual products in cattle, grain, and fruits, but on more frequent occasions, though, perhaps, not in so large numbers. They may not always result in se- curing a larger immediate pecuniary return for the MEANS AND OCCASIONS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 4.7 farmer's labor ; though nothing is more certain to bring an increase of this sort than an increase of intelligence in the methods of labor which such gatherings are well calculated to promote. But, however this may be, they do result in a culture of the better feelings and sensi- bilities, which is of more importance than the best and most profitable culture of the soil. No company of men can come together as friends and neighbors to dis- cuss corn or potatoes, or anything that concerns their common life, without going home the better for so do- ing. They feel anew the touch of a common humanity, and they are better men for what they have mutually given and received in the interchange of thought and by the secret magnetism of their personal presence. They have a new and deeper interest in one another and a kindlier feeling towards each other. The farm- ers' sons should, of course, be included in these gather- ings, and be made to feel that they are for their sake as much as for that of their elders. Instead of being mere- ly allowed to hang about upon the outskirts of such as- semblings, as has been so commonly the usage, they should be made to feel that they are an essential part of them. It has been the bane of our agricultural life too commonly that the sons of our farmers have been made mere drudges and dependents, instead of being early recognized as having a partnership in the com- mon work and the common rewards of the home hus- bandry, and thus too often have been fairly driven off from the place which had become more a place of ser- 48 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. vitude than a home, and, therefore, had little to attach them to it. If these meetings are also open to the farmers' wives and daughters, as they should be, the result will be all the better. The tone of the talk will be more refined more of the soul and less of the soil while the light of woman's eye shining upon the scene, even when her voice, perhaps, may not be heard, will serve to quicken all the better sensibilities of man's nature. And then there will be the little hand-shakings and interchanges of family and neighborhood news in the doorway and on the steps before and after the formal gatherings and discussions. Or there will be the free loosing of the tongue and the unbosoming of the heart, perhaps, at the social dinner or tea which is the accompaniment of the meeting, that will make the result all the better ; for this dining or supping together is, after all, one of the great motive forces of a truly human society. A good dinner is recognized in political circles as an important instrument of diplomacy. "We have it, also, on the au- thority of a very eminent and very intellectual clergy- man that it is impossible to carry on a ministerial club successfully without having a good dinner or supper as one of its adjuncts. And ever since Jacob secured Esau's birthright by a mess of pottage, and conquered his will by an assault on his stomach, the importance of this organ has been recognized. Body and soul are strangely linked together. We are not all body, and we cannot be all aoul if we would. The attempt thus MEANS AND OCCASIONS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 49 to etherealize ourselves makes us ghosts or dyspeptics, and not men. And so fairs and festivals of almost all sorts are to be encouraged on the same account. In a pecuniary view, the former are expensive. They commonly cost more than they come to, though many persons have an easy way of cheating themselves into the belief that they thus secure large returns upon a small investment. And, accompanied as they frequently have been by grab -bags and lotteries in one form or another, their moral influence has been bad. Their real value is so- cial, not pecuniary; and as man is worth more than money, so these occasions for the development of the social part of our nature are worth more than all the most successful speculations of the Exchange. The heart at such times coins feelings which are more pre- cious than any coinage of the mint. Let fairs and fes- tivals, then, be encouraged and multiplied as often as fit occasions for them can be found. They may occupy time. But how can time be better employed? They may require the expenditure of some labor in preparing for them. But what labor is spent to better purpose? And when the work is over, how many pleasant com- panionships will have been formed or cemented anew, and how many pleasant memories will remain ! The community will have been drawn together ; hearts will have come into closer fellowship ; the sense of a com- mon humanity will have been deepened; and some- thing besides dollars and cents, or digging and ditching, 50 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. will have been thought of. And then, so far as digging and ditching are a necessary part of the villager's life, he will go back to it from these social and festive occa- sions with a freshened spirit and a more willing heart ; he will go back to it feeling that he is not a mere dirt- digger, after all, but that there is another and better side to his life. It is but a short step from these farmers' clubs and fairs and festivals to many other things which appeal to, and at the same time cultivate, the social feeling, and which tend to give attractiveness and interest to the place where they are found. Such are debating soci- eties and lecture associations, either separately or com- bined. The former may easily be established in connec- tion with every district school ; and one can hardly be es- tablished without proving a source of interest and enter- tainment to the whole neighborhood. And every town may have an instructive course of lectures, as the lei- sure winter evenings come on, which will prove a happy occasion of reunion to the entire community. Nor is it necessary to send abroad, unless occasionally, perhaps, for the brilliant stars of the lecture firmament. Let there but be a readiness to give a modicum of honor to a prophet in his own country, to cherish and appreciate home talent ; and then, when the schoolmaster has giv- en his address on some theme which he has studied, and Farmer A comes with his experience on the culti- vation of corn or on the improvements which have been made in the art of husbandry ; or Blacksmith B MEANS AND OCCASIONS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 51 gives his essay on iron, or the strength of materials, or some other subject with which he is familiar; or Car- penter C his discourse on house -building or the various qualities and uses of timber; and the doctor, the lawyer, and the minister contribute their quota from their various stores of knowledge and the contents of their libraries, the people who come to hear will listen to honest and instructive thought, if not always to the smoothest or most startling periods; and the home life and society of their own village will have new value in their esteem, and they will be more ready to think that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant places, and be more content than ever with their coun- try home. Then how easy to have, in almost every village, some organization for musical purposes a glee club, per- haps, or a band of instrumental performers which shall from time to time call the people together, in larger or smaller numbers, and in different neighbor- hoods, it may be, for a pleasant entertainment of mu- sic, combined with cheerful conversation and harmless games of various kinds. It is easy to see, when we come to look at the subject thus, how readily means are afforded for developing the social spirit of our village life, and thus waking that life from the dulness and seeming torpor which too often characterize it, and giving it a new interest and attractiveness. 52 VILLAGES AJS T D VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTEK VII. VILLAGE-IMPROVEMENT SOCIETIES. "The real elements of beauty in a village are not fine houses, costly fences, paved roadways, geometrical lines, mathematical grading, nor any obviously costly improvements. They are, rather, cosiness, neatness, sim- plicity, and that homely air that grows from these and from the presence of a home-loving people." GEORGE E. WARING, JR. WE have spoken of fairs, festivals, fanners' clubs, and the like as deserving encouragement on account of their contributions to the social life of our villages and consequent tendency to make our village life more at- tractive. But when these means of social improvement have come into use to any considerable extent, there will grow up such an interest in the village home as will lead many to wish to do something to make it additionally attractive to add something of method and system to the work of improvement. As a new spirit is developed in one and another; as the social feelings are quickened ; as something of taste is felt stirring in here and there one, there will be more and more of desire, on the part of those so affected, to do something for the whole community of which they form a portion. Very naturally they will desire to see a better outward look on the village itself the houses VILLAGE-IMPROVEMENT SOCIETIES. 53 in which they live, the streets along which they have occasion so often to walk or ride. The desire is a laud- able one ; and yet it often fails of attaining its object, except very slowly and partially, for want of the aid of systematic and associated action, and because action in this direction and for this object is something un- familiar in practice. There are some, if not many, in nearly every village, probably, who have, in a degree at least, the spirit of improvement; who desire their own advancement in culture and character, and who carry this feeling, to some extent, into the arrangement of their own houses and their surroundings ; and who would gladly see an improvement in the aspect of the whole town or village where they live. But, alone, they are comparatively powerless to effect the desired object. It is true that what any one may do to im- prove his own residence, or to improve himself, has the force of example, and is likely to stimulate the feeling of improvement in others, and thus produce some good result. But this influence works slowly. The desired result may be much hastened by bringing together and combining the power of those who have like feeling and taste. And there is often a good deal of feeling and taste existing in a latent state, as it were, which any such organization calls out and makes manifest, which otherwise would never have made itself known. Hence, among the most hopeful agencies for the im- provement of our village life are those various organi- zations and associations which have been springing up 54 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. within the last few years, known generally as Village- improvement Societies, though sometimes bearing oth- er names. Such organizations deserve to be encouraged on very many accounts. They may begin, if need be, in a very humble way. They may begin in almost any neighborhood. It is not at all necessary to wait till the whole village or town can be set moving in this direction. If only those living on some one street or in some one neighborhood, or a considerable part of them, associate themselves for purposes of improvement, their aim will sooner or later extend so as to take in the entire town, and their organ- ization will enlarge itself proportionally or be merged in another of wider scope. Sooner or later the thing will expand so as to meet to the fullest extent the re- sult desired. What, is most needed is a beginning. If there are but half a dozen neighbors, or half a dozen in the whole town, known to each other as having some desire to see a better state of society and a better look to the village where they live, let them get together some evening and resolve to do what they can, by their combined efforts, to bring about the desired result. But let the meeting and the earnest talk not end in talk ; and that it may not so end, let not those assem- bled be afraid to organize themselves into a visible and formal society or association. Some organization is in- dispensable to success. They need not fear that such a course will look ambitious or presuming. And now, having sufficient courage and earnestness VILLAGE-IMPROVEMENT SOCIETIES. 55 of purpose to organize themselves into a visible body or corporation, they need not waste time in deciding by what particular name they will be known. This is, comparatively, unimportant. If they happen to have most prominently in mind at the start the desirableness of trees to cover the nakedness of some place from which the ruthless axe at some former time has swept away every green thing, let them call themselves the " Tree-planting Association " of such a town or village. If it is a neighborhood movement for the general bet- terment of things around them, they may designate themselves the " Neighborhood-improvement So- ciety." Or, if it is a more wide -spread movement at the outset, they may style themselves the " Village-im- provement Society of ." The name is of little consequence. It is the action under it which is of im- portance. What is wanted is something to hold them together in a visible unity, so that they may act united- ly, systematically, and with their combined force and efficiency. Being thus organized, and having taken some name, it is very important that their few officers should be selected with reference to their earnestness and efficiency rather than their dignity or the personal position which they may have in the community. Our societies are not unfrequently so loaded down with dignity in their officers that their effectiveness is very small. The constitution of the societ} r may be as simple as its name. Nothing elaborate or long-drawn is neces- 56 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. sary. Let the object or objects of the association be stated in as few and simple words as may be. Let there be a president, secretary, treasurer, and an execu- tive committee of two or three it may be a few more and then the society is ready for work. With what work it shall best begin will depend upon the peculiarities of the place and also upon the sea- son of the year. Some places need improvement most in one direction ; others, in a different one. With some it will be most needful in outward things, while in others it may be most demanded in respect to things within doors and those which more directly respect so- cial feeling and habits. If the association comes into being and takes form in the cooler season of the year, then it will naturally turn its attention first to the pro- motion of social enjoyment by means of pleasant gather- ings in one place and another festivals, concerts, games, and the like ; while it will also be discussing, from time to time, in its meetings, plans for operations when the right season comes, which will do something for the improvement of the outward appearance of the village. If the organization of the society takes place in spring- time, its first efforts will naturally be put forth in the en- deavor to secure some outward improvement or embel- lishment ; and, perhaps, no better start is likely to be made than by planting trees along some naked street or upon some open ground which has been left at the confluence of two or three roads waiting to be fashion- ed, with little effort, into a lovely park. Or it may be VILLAGE-IMPROVEMENT SOCIETIES. 57 the village church has been left, like a great rocky boulder, standing in some bleak place, exposed alike to the blaze of the sun and the blasts of the storm, forlorn and cheerless. It would be a thing welcomed by all if this could be changed, as it could be by only a day or two given, at the right season, to the planting of trees. If the parish minister should be a member of the Im- provement Society as he very likely would be he might be willing to lend a voice in church on the Sab- bath as well as a hand at the right time elsewhere, by doing as one clergyman we wot of did, who one day, calling to his aid the words of Isaiah, gave the follow- ing among his Sabbath notices: "All those who are willing to aid in making the surroundings of the house of God pleasant and comely are invited to go out into the woods with me to-morrow and 'bring the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together to beautify the place of God's sanctuary, and make the place of his feet glo- rious.' " The result in that case was a pleasant, social day on the hill-sides spent in gathering the trees, and nearly a hundred of them, of various kinds, planted around the church, where they now stand, the adorn- ment of the village and a monument to the memory of that minister to which the people point with pride and affection. Perhaps the village cemetery has been neglected, and is an unsightly and disagreeable place. If so, here is a feasible point at which to begin the work of village im- provement. No other work could be undertaken, either, E 58 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. which would be likely to excite a more general interest or elicit a more general co-operation, for all have a man- ifest concern in the good keeping of the place where lie the remains of friends and kindred, and where all are so soon to lie down. Let the work be undertaken of surrounding the place of the dead with some barrier which shall protect its sacred ground from the intru- sion of wandering cattle. Let it be girt about with an evergreen hedge, emblematical of our immortality, our essential life thus asserting itself, as it were, in the very citadel of death. Let the paths that lead through the cemetery be cleared of their grass and weeds ; the half- fallen gravestones be set up again, and trees and shrubs planted along the avenues, or in other places, under the grateful shadow of which the visitor to the graves of dear friends may sit down for rest and tranquil contem- plation. In the various ways now suggested, and in many oth- ers not named, the desired work may be begun and car- ried forward. It matters little, as we have said, where the beginning is made. One thing will naturally lead to another until the whole field is covered. One thing, too, will commonly be enough for any one year, while several years will be required to accomplish some of the objects which a village -improvement society will be likely to undertake. Such an association must not attempt too much at once. In this respect, "hasten slowly" is true wisdom. It ought to be said, moreover, that this combined vil- VILLAGE-IMPKOVEMENT SOCIETIES. 59 lage-improvement work is eminently one for both sex- es. There can be no dispute about woman's rights here, for this is peculiarly a work of taste and feeling ; and, in matters of taste and feeling, woman's claim to a hearing and a participation none will dispute. The union of the sexes in councils about village improve- ment will make the consultations all the more pleasant, and the work finally done all the more satisfactory. We have in mind one village, which stands as a model for work of this kind, where the work has been done largely through the instrumentality of women. In all the councils that have led to the improvement of this village the gentler sex have borne a conspicuous part, and their suggestions have been cordially welcomed. So it should be in all such cases. The sexes should combine in the work of improving their common home. The refining and tasteful influences of the one should co-operate with the executive energy of the other. The result will be all the more complete and satisfactory for this combination of qualities. Besides, it would be a great loss to miss the opportunities which the frequent consultations of such associations afford for the meeting of the sexes together in one of the pleasantest ways possible. Such assemblings are to be encouraged on all accounts. 60 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTER VIII. THE LAUKEL HILL ASSOCIATION. "Woodman, spare that tree!" G. P. MORRIS. A BKIEF sketch of a single successful organization for the purpose of village improvement may make the sub- ject more clear, and prove a better incitement to action in the right direction than much more that might be said in another and more general form. Most people are more ready to work from a pattern than to originate for themselves, even when the work to be done is sim- ple. We give a few pages, therefore, to a sketch of the Laurel Hill Association of Stockbridge, Mass., which has become somewhat widely known, and has served as the model of several like associations. And if any one would see at a glance what steady and persistent work can do, though neither large numbers nor large capital is engaged in it, let him visit the hills of Berkshire, and, after looking down upon its most beautiful village, and passing along its clean and shaded streets, let him ask some of its inhabitants to describe to him the place as it was a score of years ago. The Laurel Hill Association had a very simple and modest beginning, showing in this that such organiza- THE LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. . 61 tions need not be started with any great formality or any plan of immediate great effects. It had its origin in the endeavor, on the part of a few sensible and taste- ful persons, to preserve a well - wooded hill, situated nearly in the centre of the village, from falling a victim to the woodman's axe, and so becoming, instead of the " thing of beauty " it was, only an unsightly object. The rocky and wood-crowned eminence was purchased, and subsequently given in trust to a small company who had organized themselves for the purpose ; and as the hill abounded in the kalmia, or laurel, this easily gave name to the association. But it was not enough for the association simply to preserve the hill, or to add something to its attractive- ness by clearing away the tangled underbrush or re- moving the dead or decaying trees. The securing of the hill as a matter of taste, and not because it was good for so much cord-wood, and therefore so much annual pecuniary income, naturally stimulated the proprietors, and put them upon doing something more in the direc- tion of right feeling and public improvement. So they began by taking in hand the cemetery, which, like so many of our village burial-grounds, had been left in neg- lect. Accumulated rubbish was removed. Walks were cleaned up and new ones constructed. The fallen head- stones were made to stand erect again. It was not long before, through the influence of the association, the town was induced to make an appropriation of money sufficient to surround the cemetery with a neat fence of 62 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. iron, within which was planted a belt of evergreens. Subsequently, a stone receiving-tomb was built, where the bodies of the dead might be temporarily deposited when, on account of the frozen ground in winter, or of tempestuous weather, immediate burial might not be convenient. And thus the work has gone on from year to year until that plain country burial-place has become a beautiful and pleasant spot, and, although in the midst of the dwellings of the villagers, is not re- garded as an objectionable presence. From putting in order the cemetery, trimming and smoothing its pathways, it was easy and natural for the association to undertake to put the streets and walks of the village in better condition. The two works soon came to be carried on together. Beginning at the cen- tre, where everybody had occasion to come for the sake of the post-office, the churches, and the stores, the ine- qualities and inconveniences of the principal street were corrected by proper grading and drainage ; and ample gravel walks on either side were constructed in place of the narrow and devious trails which so commonly serve for paths in our country villages, the footways of the horses and cows being usually better cared for than those over which their owners have to pass. The peo- ple living along the street were also stimulated to put their premises in a clean and tasteful condition, and to keep them so. Next followed the planting of trees near the roadside wherever trees were lacking. The children, sometimes in their thoughtlessness disposed to THE LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. 63 treat young trees too rudely by climbing them or mak- ing them turning-goals in their cheery sports, were not only held in check, but made auxiliaries of the associa- tion in its work, and put under a beneficial culture for themselves. Any boy who would undertake to watch and care for a particular tree during two years was rewarded by having the tree called by his name. Other children were paid a few pennies, from time to time, for the loose papers and other unsightly things which they would pick up and remove from the street. Gradually this work of the association extended. It soon took in hand the streets connected with the main one, and reaching out towards the borders of the town. Year by year it pushed its walks out from the village centre towards the remoter points. Year by year it extended its lines of trees in the same manner, thus seeking to facilitate intercourse between the various parts of the town and to make the means of travel easy and pleasant. In the winter season and the early spring the associ- ation, gathered in its frequent and familiar consultations from house to house, would consider what further im- provements were most needed, and then perhaps would vote an appropriation for the construction of a walk, or the planting of trees along some street, on condi- tion that the dwellers in the vicinity should contribute a like sum either in money or labor. Thus, directly or indirectly, a good many have been led to help on the work who have not been members of the associa- 64 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. tion. And so the process of constructing walks, im- proving roads, planting trees and hedges, and stimulat- ing the people generally to a more tasteful care of their premises has gone forward. Little by little, and in many nameless ways, the houses and barns, the door- yards and farms, have come to wear a look of neatness and intelligent care that makes the Stockbridge of to- day quite a diiferent place from the Stockbridge of twenty, or of even ten, years ago. All this has been done, too, at comparatively little pe- cuniary expense. Yearly subscriptions, ranging from ten dollars down to one, have been solicited, the payment of which has easily been made ; and with the money thus secured from year to year, and the additional contribu- tions made in labor, the work has been accomplished. It has really been no tax upon the town, and hardly a burden upon any one. It has rather been a source of pleasure all along, and a kind of healthful rec- reation. Meantime the improved appearance of the place has increased the market-value of the houses and lands by a large percentage. People of wealth and taste from abroad, from the great cities, have been attracted to the place, and have built handsome residences for themselves and made large expenditures which have gone, to a considerable extent, into the pockets of the villagers ; and thus the association, though not aiming at pecuniary results, but only at those of taste and feeling, is found to be the best paying investment, even in a pecuniary view, which the people have made. THE LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. 65 Travellers passing through Stockbridge are apt to speak of it with admiration as a finished place ; and, compared with many even of the New England vil- lages, it has such a look. But the Laurel Hill Associa- tion does not consider its village home finished, nor its own work completed. Still the work goes on. Com- mittees are even now conning plans for further im- provements. The association is all the while widening the scope of its action. By itself, or by suggestions and stimulations offered to others, it is aiming at the culture of the village people through other agencies than those of outward and physical adornment. It fosters libraries, reading-rooms, and other places of resort where inno- cent and healthful games, music, and conversation will tend to promote pleasant social feeling and lessen vice by removing some of its causes. The monthly meetings of the association are of the pleasantest kind. Composed of both sexes, and assem- bling in turn at the houses of the different members, the evenings are spent in discussing whatever tends to the improvement of their common home. Something higher and more important than the fashions or the or- dinary gossip of the village occupies the attention, and leaves no regret afterwards for time misspent. Once a year the association holds its public festival, and modestly invites all who will to come and see what it is doing and what it has done. In the month of August, on some bright and sunny afternoon, you may see the villagers, together with the city guests 66 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. summering here and in the neighboring towns, mak- ing their way up the slope of Laurel Hill to a plateau half-way from its base to the summit. Here, under the shade of lofty oaks and elms, there is easy standing- room for two thousand persons. Upon the eastern side of this plateau, where the hill presents a perpen- dicular face of rock, a rostrum of earth covered with turf has been built, from which the eye looks out, through the arching canopy of trees, upon a lovely stretch of meadow, with the winding Housatonic near by, and a portion of the Tacouic range bounding the western horizon. Here, upon their earthen platform, gather the officers of the association, with the orator of the occasion, and possibly the poet, with perhaps a band of music near them, while the assembled com- pany distribute themselves in groups on the green grass, or on the adjacent rocks which form the galler- ies of this rustic theatre. Prayer is offered. The sec- retary and treasurer make report of the transactions of the society during the year. The officers for the en- suing year are chosen. Then the attention of the com- pany is asked to an address, usually by some present or former resident of Stockbridge who has gained a measure of distinction in letters, in trade, or in art, and who is willing thus to recognize his duty to the place of abode. A poem, perhaps, follows, then short speeches from one and another whom the president espies among the trees, and calls upon for a contribu- tion for the occasion. The speeches are interluded by THE LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. 67 strains of music and pleasant neighborly talk. All is simple and unstudied. It is the village festival. People come together here who meet nowhere else. And here all are equal. Old and young, rich and poor, meet together. All feel that they are welcome ; arid as the sun begins to throw his slant shadows down the hill-side and along the green meadows, the groups move homeward with a kindlier interest in one anoth- er, and a stronger attachment to the place where their lot has been cast. To complete the account of this association w r e give its constitution, which may possibly be of service to such as have in contemplation the formation of a sim- ilar organization. BY-LAWS A.ND REGMJLA.TIONS or TUB LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. ARTICLE I. This Association shall be called "The Laurel Hill Association of Stock- bridge." ARTICLE II. The objects of this Association shall be to improve and ornament the streets and public grounds of Stockbridge, by planting and cultivating trees, cleaning and repairing the sidewalks, and doing such other acts as shall tend to beautify and improve said streets and grounds. ARTICLE III. The officers of this Association shall consist of a president, four vice- presidents, a clerk, a treasurer, a corresponding secretary, and an execu- 68 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. tive committee of fifteen, part of whom shall be ladies. These officers shall be elected at the annual meeting (except the first election, which shall be on the 3d of September, 1853), and shall hold their offices until others shall be elected in their places. ARTICLE IV. The president, vice-presidents, clerk, treasurer, and corresponding sec- retary shall be ex-officio members of the executive committee. ARTICLE V. It shall be the duty of the president to preside at all meetings of the Association, and in his absence the senior vice-president shall preside. It shall also be the duty of the president and vice-presidents to procure addresses at the annual meetings of the Association. ARTICLE VI. It shall be the duty of the clerk to keep a correct and careful record of all the proceedings of the Association, in a suitable book to be procured for that purpose, and to notify all meetings of the Association. ARTICLE VII. It shall be the duty of the treasurer to keep safely all the moneys be- longing to the Association, and to pay them over on the orders of the executive committee. ARTICLE VIII. It shall be the duty of the corresponding secretary to correspond with absent members, and to do all the correspondence of the Association. ARTICLE IX. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to employ all laborers, make all contracts, expend all moneys, direct and superintend all the improvements of the Association at their discretion. They shall hold meetings monthly from April to October in each year, and as much oftener as they may deem expedient. They shnll have power to institute a system of premiums to be award- ed for planting and protecting ornamental trees, and making such other improvements as they shall deem best. THE LAUREL HILL ASSOCIATION. 69 ARTICLE X. Every person over fourteen years of age who shall plant and protect a tree under the direction of the executive committee, or pay the sum of one dollar annually, and obligate him or herself to pay the same for three years, shall be a member of this Association. And every child under fourteen years of age who shall pay, or become obligated as above, for the sum of twenty-five cents, or an equivalent amount of work annual- ly for three years, under the direction of the executive committee, shall be a member of this Association. ARTICLE XI. The payment of ten dollars annually for three years, or of twenty-five dollars in one sum, shall constitute a person a member of this Association for life. ARTICLE XII. Honorary members may be constituted by a vote of the Association. ARTICLE XIII. The autograph signatures of all the members of the Association shall be preserved. ARTICLE XIV. The annual meeting of the Association shall be held on Laurel Hill, on the fourth Wednesday of August, at two o'clock in the afternoon. Notices of said meeting shall be posted on each of the churches, and at the post-office, at least seven days prior to the time of holding said meeting, and a written notice sent to all non-resident members, said notices to be signed by the corresponding secretary. Other meetings of the Association may be called by the executive committee, on seven days' notice, as above prescribed. ARTICLE XV. At the annual meeting the executive committee shall report the amount of money received and expended during the year ; the number of trees planted by their direction ; the number planted by individuals, and the doings of the committee in general. Their report shall be en- tered on the records of the Association. 70 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. ARTICLE XVI. Five members present at any meeting of the executive committee shall constitute a quorum for transacting business. ARTICLE XVII. No debt shall be contracted by the executive committee beyond the amount of available means within their control to pay it, and no mem- ber of this Association shall be liable for any debt of the Association beyond the amount of his or her subscription. ARTICLE XVIII. These by-laws and regulations may be amended at the suggestion of the executive committee, sanctioned by a vote of a majority of the mem- bers present at any meeting of the Association. TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 71 CHAPTER IX. TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. "What we lack, perhaps, more than all is, not the capacity to perceive and enjoy the beauty of ornamental trees and shrubs the rural embellish- ment alike of the cottage and the villa but we are deficient in the knowl- edge and the opportunity of knowing how beautiful human habitations are made by a little taste, time, and means expended in this way.'' A. J. DOWNING. " The man who loves not trees to look at them, to lie under them, to climb up them (once more a schoolboy), would make no bones of murder- ing." CHRISTOPHER NORTH. THE one natural and universal beauty of a village is in its trees, so that one can hardly think of a pleasant bit of country without them. Mountains may be grand from their very bulk and massiveness, or awful even, by reason of their sometimes scarred and naked cliffs, but they are beautiful only as they are clothed with the verdure of trees. So water, whether in the form of running stream or placid lake, is one of the charms of the country. Yet the stream must be fringed with trees, occasionally at least, and linger now and then in shady nooks, and the lake must lie like a gem in a setting of verdurous foliage, in order to produce the best effect, and make the strongest appeal to the sense of the beau- tiful. The water, otherwise, is valuable only as so much 72 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. mill-power, or to afford means of transportation for mer- chandise. And so every one feels that half the beauty of the natural world, if not more, is gone when comes the annual fall of the leaves, for then, except for the evergreens, the trees hardly seem trees to us. They are only so much dead wood, apparently, which we look upon very much as we do upon that in the carpenter's shop or the lumber-yard valuable for certain purposes of human art and comfort, but touching us no longer with sentiment, nor drawing out our feeling as to living things which have on this account some relation to ourselves. We need no apology, therefore, after having spoken in a general way about village life, its needs, and the means of its improvement, for offering some more par- ticular considerations in regard to what must bear so important a part in the outward improvement of our villages as trees. A tree! What object appeals more certainly to the universal heart of man ? Its very commonness may be a reason why very many, and especially those who have grown up in well-wooded districts, are not distinctly con- scious of the pleasure which they find in trees. It is like their unconsciousness of the delight, the daily en- joyment of the atmosphere. But who, least emotional of mortals though he be, has not, at some time, if not often, felt a tree to be a precious thing? The tired wayfarer, reclining by the dusty roadside under its cool, refreshing shade ! What more precious or truly human picture than that ? A party of old and young, of both TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 73 sexes, picnicking on a summer's day beneath the spread- ing boughs of some grand old oak ! How could such a happy scene be without that tree? Yonder lofty and majestic elm, the growth of a century, standing by the side of some farm-house, which, though ample in size, it dwarfs to a cottage as it rises above it with its dome of shade, and tosses its giant arms high over roof-tree and chimney-top ! What an object to fill one at the same time with wonder and admiration ! How it starts deep and meditative thoughts even in the casual beholder! That lordly pine, or hemlock, refusing to be robbed of its beauty at any season of the year, but singing, like a hundred ^Eolian harps, with every breeze, and holding itself before us as an emblem of life and immortality, to cheer us when all around is wrapped in the chill white robe of winter, what object on earth, next after the immortal man himself, is more beautiful or more noble ? " Woodman, spare that tree !" You cannot replace in a lifetime what your axe may destroy in an hour. It has taken a lifetime and more to build up that miracle of beauty. "In what one imaginable attribute that it ought to possess," asks Christopher North, in the Nodes Am- brosiancp, " is a tree, pray, deficient ? Light, shade, shelter, coolness, freshness, music, all the colors of the rainbow, dew and dreams, dropping through their soft twilight at eve and morn dropping direct, soft, sweet, soothing, restorative from heaven." What a blessing to have such things around us ! What a blessing to be able F 74 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. to place them just where we will, to plant and care for them, and see them under our hands growing into ob- jects of beauty and delight, the adornment and one of the chief charms of our homes ! Does it need any argu- ment to show the healthful influence healthful alike to body and soul which they are adapted to exert upon us ? There has always been a charm for the finest minds in tree-planting. It has been at the same time one of the best recreations and one of the pleasantest studies for those of the noblest powers. Scholars and statesmen, poets and philosophers, have delighted to occupy their time in producing effects by means of such planting. Says Lord Bacon, " God Almighty first planted a gar- den ; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, with- out which buildings and palaces are but gross handi- works ; and a man shall ever see that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening w r ere the greater perfection." We know only comparatively little of what Bacon means by gardening ; that is, by any practice in our own country. Gardening, in his sense, implies the planting of whole acres with trees, and the production of land- scape effects by a careful and well-studied disposal of them in groups and belts, and sometimes in banks of forest almost, as well as by the judicious placing of single trees. "We know little of this. Our planting is mostly confined to the arrangement of a few trees in small en- TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 75 closures, or along the roadside, with occasionally some- thing on a little larger scale, as when we lay out a city park of a few acres. But even with the small scale on which we work, there is occasion for the production of decided effects and room for study in order to make them most pleas- ing. And here let us say that no country in the world, per- haps, affords a larger variety of trees for use in planting than our own, or trees finer or more desirable in them- selves. To a great extent we are ignorant of our tree- wealth, and not unfrequently have we sent abroad for trees when we have had much better ones at home. We might mention the Lombardy poplar, for instance, a tree very fashionable forty or fifty years ago and the relics of the fashion are to be seen now occasionally but a poorer thing in the shape of a tree it would be hard to find. A single one, with its tall, spiry form, as a contrast to the spreading forms of other trees, in a considerable plantation, would be admissible, and per- haps produce a good effect. But to fill one's door-yard with such, or to plant them in rows along the roadside for miles together, as has sometimes been done, is the merest caricature of tree -planting. If we want pop- lars, moreover, we have them in our own forests, and need not go to Italy for them, or to the nurseries. And so, also, we have scores of other trees in our forests of which we may avail ourselves for the embellishment of our village streets and door-yards. We have limited 76 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. ourselves to the use of half a dozen trees, as a gen- eral thing, in our planting, when we might easily have taken our choice from half a hundred. We have up- wards of forty kinds of oak alone in our country, and yet we hardly know what it is to plant an oak. What trees we have of this sort are such as have been left in the cutting-off of our forests, or those which have come up spontaneously. But there is hardly a grander tree in the world than many of our oaks. This tree, how- ever, like all, or nearly all, our trees, needs to grow alone to have, literally, an "open field" for itself in order to show its true character. Our woodmen know' that if they want the most serviceable tree for timber, they must seek it in the open ground rather than in the for- est. The tree that grows in the forest, crowded by others, neither has the strength nor the beauty of the one that grows by itself, and consequently battles with the winds and bathes in the daily sunshine, and has room to toss its arms abroad and develop its peculiar nature completely. In planting for beauty, therefore, care should be taken to select trees from the open ground, or those which grow upon the edge of the forest rather than in its depths. Oftentimes very fine trees will be found grow- ing along the division fences of the farm. Choosing trees thus, we should next endeavor to avail ourselves of the great variety offered to our hand. Instead of contenting ourselves with the elm and the maple, as so many have done, though these are in themselves trees TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. ff of the finest character, we should call to our aid also such as the ash, and the beech, and the birches, as well as the tulip, or whitewood, and the chestnut and hickory.* Then, among trees which have been brought from abroad, but which are now easily obtained at home, we have the horse-chestnut, a tree both beautiful in shape and beautiful for its clusters of bright flowers. And then there is the whole pine family, as we may call them, or the evergreens. We have done hardly anything with this class of trees except to cut them down for fire-wood or lumber. In this respect we are widely in contrast with the English, who often almost fill their lawns and parks with the different kinds of evergreens. And yet there is more reason why we should plant this class of trees than they. We need them in our bright sunshine, so prevalent, to tone down the too abundant light, and to give a sense of coolness to our homes and streets in the heats of summer ; whereas the English are under dark- ened and dripping skies almost all the time. Then they are specially desirable in the winter, when other trees * For the satisfaction of those who may not be acquainted with many of our native trees, or who may like to know the opinion of others in re- gard to the merit of different trees, we give a list of those which the Park Commission at Washington, D. C., composed of three men of high stand- ing as horticulturists, have chosen for planting on the borders of streets. They have planted nearly forty- thousand trees, which have mostly been made up of the following twelve varieties, and which we place in the order of preference given them by this commission : White maple, American linden, American elm, scarlet maple, box elder, sugar-maple, American white ash, English sycamore, button-ball, tulip-tree, honey-locust, Norway maple. 78 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. have lost their foliage and the glare of the snow is almost blinding. How pleasant and refreshing it is then to let the eye rest upon the soft yet vivid green of the pines ! Comparatively few also know what a protection from the cold of winter may be secured by means of the trees. A single row of pines, planted near the most exposed side of a dwelling, will furnish a very effective barrier against the chilling blasts from the northwest ; and a belt of such trees, two or three deep, will almost change a winter climate to a temperate one. This is accomplished both by the obstruction which the almost solid mass of leaves offers to the passage of the wind, and by the pos- itive heat which the trees also impart to the atmosphere. For it has been found by experiment that the vital func- tions of growing trees, like the vital functions of our own bodies, are attended by the evolution of heat which is given out to the surrounding air. It is easy to see, therefore, that very much might be done by the use of the evergreens to make our village homes more beauti- ful, and at the same time more comfortable. And here let us say a few words for one of our most beautiful but least appreciated evergreens. We mean the hemlock pine. We hold it to be altogether the finest evergreen that is native to our country, and rival- led by few that grow anywhere. And yet, because part- ly of its very abundance in many portions of our coun- try, covering whole mountain-sides, and because of its inferiority to the harder woods, and even to the white and yellow pines, for use as lumber or fuel, it has come TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 79 to be held, among our villagers especially, as a cheap sort of tree to be made little account of. And so it has been very little planted, and seldom thought of as a desirable addition to the door-yard or the street. But there is really no such beauty in our woods, and no such adorn- ment as it is capable of giving to our dwellings and our villages. Whoever has had one or more of these trees fairly established on his lawn, or has seen one that has had a proper chance to grow in the forest, where it could throw out its arms symmetrically on all sides and lift its head without impediment year by year towards the sky, has been ready to confess that there is no tree at the same time so graceful and so grand. The elm, among deciduous trees, alone can match it. The white and yellow pines and the spruce fir are stiff and ugly in com- parison. The Norway spruce is its only rival, but it is of a coarser make and less attractive. Both have the beautiful habit of drooping their lower branches till they almost, or quite, touch the ground, and then rising in majestic and graceful cones till they overtop almost all other trees. But the hemlock has a delicacy of foli- age and a grace in every limb which the other has not. Its whole structure is instinct with life and beauty. Its taper branches, ending and clothed all through with its most delicate leaflets, sway with every motion of the air, and toss themselves about as in a perpetual joy of life. The Dryads surely must have this tree for their home and temple. How its new shoots, coming out in the spring season and as they do in a measure even after 80 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. almost every rain in the summer of a lighter tint than the older leaves, seem fairly to smile upon you as you behold! "O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer-time, But in the winter's frost and rime! O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!" It is a pity this tree should not be made use of more than it is for the embellishment of our home surround- ings ; not to the exclusion of the other evergreens, but in company with them. Together they make up a very pleasant and desirable variety, while any and all of them form a fine background for the various deciduous trees. How one of our white birches, for instance, stands out against a belt of dark pines ! The effect is almost mag- ical. And not only is the landscape effect better when evergreens are mingled with deciduous trees, but both classes of trees seem to grow better in each other's company than separately. This is usually nature's own way of growing them. Abundant experiments also have proved that many deciduous trees are very much benefited by the shelter which neighboring evergreens give them. It is wise, then, on all accounts, to mingle these different classes of trees in our planting. Some may think the evergreens specially difficult of management, but it is not so. There is just one thing to be remembered in transplanting them, and that is that we must not allow their roots to become dry, whether by exposure to sun or wind. It is important, TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 81 therefore, that they should be transplanted, if possible, in a cloudy or, better, a misty and still day, or else that their roots be covered while they are being removed from their old to their new home. If one will only thus guard their roots from becoming dry, he may transplant a hemlock or a white pine with as much ease and cer- tainty of subsequent growth as he can a maple. Ever- greens may be transplanted with this care in the warm months of July and August as well as in the early springtime. It is best commonly, however, to choose small trees, because it is not easy to find large and sym- metrical ones, and because, in the case of all small trees, we are likely to take up a greater proportional share of roots than with those which are larger. And whatever tree is handled, evergreen or decidu- ous, large or small, let it not only be taken up carefully, but planted also carefully. This should be the inflex- ible law. Careless planting is a great waste of time and timber, and very unsatisfactory. A few good trees full of vitality, and, therefore, making lusty growth from year to year, are better, worth more every way, than ever so many dead-and-alive things mere apolo- gies for trees of which, alas ! we see too many. Treat a tree as such a living, divinely created thing ought to be treated. A tree has rights which white men, black men, and men of all other colors are bound to respect. Do not wrench it up by force from the soil into which it has woven its very life for years; do not tear its rootlets asunder in the hasty endeavor, with rude in- 82 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. struments, to separate them from their hold. But with whatever painstaking may be needful, let the roots be gently separated from the soil. Remember that they are the digestive organs of the tree ; the organs which are to gather and assimilate its food and convert it into tissue ; and that the fine, fibrous roots are, for this pur- pose, of more consequence than the large ones. The tree can no more grow without them than a man can grow without a stomach. Take them up carefully, therefore; preserve them so far as possible. And if, after all, some roots are broken in the removal, let the fractured ends be smoothly pared off with the knife so that the wounds may be quickly healed and new root- lets begin to be formed ; then replant the tree as care- fully as it has been taken from the ground. Do not, as so many do, treat it like a post and thrust it into a hole only just large enough for it, and then, ram the earth around it and leave it to take care of itself ; but be sure to make a hole as large as the natural spread of the roots, and even larger, so that they may easily push themselves out for the growth of corning years. For the same reason, make the hole of generous depth ; then see that the earth is made fine and of nutritious rich- ness. Thus, make a bed for the tree carefully, as you would make one for yourself, and then lay it therein, tucking the earth carefully about all its finest roots, and with gentle pressure bringing it into firm contact with them, settling it occasionally, perhaps, as you go on, with a few quarts of water, and finally mulching TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 83 the surface with some old straw or with flat stones. It will pay, as a child well nursed pays, by a healthy growth. It will reward you with its own tree-smiles every year and every day. It is hardly necessary to add that, as some portion of the roots is likely to be lost in the process of trans- planting, even when much care is exercised, it is proper that a corresponding portion of branches should be re- moved in order to preserve the requisite balance be- tween roots and branches, the two important parts of the tree-system. The necessary top-pruning should not be done, however, by lopping off at once the whole top down to a certain distance, nor by removing one or more of the lower and larger limbs, but rather by a shortening - in of all the branches a few inches, which will leave the shape of the tree uninjured and pre- serve the proper balance between the digestive and the breathing organs of the tree. And now one caution in conclusion. Trees are good, but we may have too many of them, and we may not have them in the proper place. It is easy for the tree- planter to overcrowd his grounds ; especially is this apt to be the case when small trees are planted. The plant- er is anxious for immediate effect at least, planters in this country usually are. And so he plants a lawn in miniature, which, in itself, looks well enough. But when a few years have gone by, the impatient planter finds that his lawn has become a thicket. The trees have expanded, as it was their nature to do, until there 84 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. is hardly any vacant space left. Now trees, to have their best effect, must be seen singly or in a harmoni- ous group of two or three perhaps, and not crowded together as in a forest, where their individuality is lost. They appear at their best, also, only when they have spaces of clean turf around them, in which they are set as enamel. And when trees are allowed to be crowded, not only is their beauty and charm as trees lost, but the highest beauty of the ground is also lost, for nothing will make amends for the lack of some space of clear, unobstructed turf, on which the sun may throw its light and across which may play the shadows of the clouds. There are few things upon which the eye rests with such abiding satisfaction, from day to day and from year to year, as a breadth of clean, luxuriant grass. Neither trees nor flowers, however rich or abundant, can take its place. Then, moreover, the crowding of trees near a dwelling is prejudicial to health. Not that trees in themselves are harmful. On the other hand, science has shown us that it is the office of the trees, through their lungs, the leaves, to reverse the action of our own lungs, to inhale carbon- ic acid, and to throw out into the air the oxygen which we need. But there is no hygienic agency equal to that of the sun. This is the true fountain of life. Plants and animals alike, without it, have but a sickly life or die. No trees, therefore, or anything else, ought to be allowed to keep its beams from striking upon our houses and coming every day, for a while at least, into TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 85 our rooms. Blinds, curtains, carpets, all ought to make way for the sun and give it welcome. Then if we want the shade of trees, let it be sought at some little dis- tance from the dwelling. On all accounts, whether of health or aesthetic effect, there should be a clear space of some breadth around every house, where hardly so much as a shrub should break the smooth green of the turf or the clean sweep of gravel. If one can have a single elm near by, so large, and its branches so lifted up that the light can strike under them abundantly, except at mid-day, it is well. One such tree is enough almost to satisfy the most ardent tree-lover and to adorn suffi- ciently any dwelling-place. But if more are wanted, let them be planted farther away. They look best at a lit- tle distance, as do good pictures. Then their different forms can be best seen, and the play of light and shade upon them with every changing hour and phase of sky. There has been much debate as to the best season of the year for tree-planting, but, like many other debates, this is, perhaps, interminable. Spring and autumn planting are advocated, one as confidently as the other. We would undertake to plant as readily in the one sea- son as the other. The advantage of planting in the au- tumn seems to us to be chiefly this, that it secures so much work done, which, if postponed until spring, may not be done then on account of the many things which are pressing for attention at that season of the year. VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTER X. VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. " Or the}' led the vine To wed her elm ; she, spoused, about him twines Her marriageable arms, and with her brings Her dower, th' adopted clusters, to adorn His barren leaves." Paradise Lost. " Man, like the generous vine, supported lives ; The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives." POPE. AMONG the things that go to the outward adornment and beautifying of our homes, whether in city or coun- try, and so to the making them the more attractive and enjoyable, few deserve a larger place in our esteem than vines and climbing plants. Yet their very modesty and unobtrusiveness often cause them to be overlook- ed, like the grace of modesty in character itself. But there is scarcely any adornment of such universal ap- plicability. They are a grace and charm for almost every place. In the crowded city there is hardly any- thing which can do so much, in giving a touch of nature and of beauty to a home amid walls and pavements of stone or brick, as a single vine or climbing plant. In the narrow space which is all that can usually be at- VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 87 tained between one city house and another, there is seldom room for any tree to develop itself and show what it can be or do. We have to content ourselves commonly with mere shrubs. Yet in the narrowest spaces it is possible to embower one's self and house- hold amid vines, and to rejoice in a grateful seclusion from curious eyes, while at the same time enjoying the balm of the open air. And even when shut up to the necessity of living in a city " block," there is no man- sion so grand, or with walls so smoothly chiselled or so deftly carved, but that an ivy or a wistaria can cling to it, and give it an added grace beyond the reach of any craftsman, and touch the heart with something softer than stone, as it greets the eyes of the dwellers there, or only those of the passers-by. But the open country is the true home of the vines and climbers, and here they work their best effects, though they have often been greatly overlooked and neglected amid the wealth of vegetation around them. One is often surprised to find people who are regarded as among the most intelligent and observing of our coun- try villagers entirely ignorant of some of the most beau- tiful climbing plants which grow in profusion within easy reach of them, perhaps within daily sight. Take, for instance, one of our most charming climbers, the clematis, known in some sections as " old man's beard," one of a dozen species, which grows abundantly along many of our New England brooks, and hangs out its beautiful silky tresses in autumn upon so many of the 88 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. hedge-rows that skirt the dusty roadway. Hardly any- thing is more delicate and graceful. It is a most rapid grower, covering large spaces in a single season, while it is also among our hardiest plants. Yet how many farm- ers have driven their cows to pasture for years through thickets of it without so much as noticing it, certainly without having any sense of its loveliness ; and many a farmer's wife or daughter has seen its white, starry flow- ers and its silky tresses by the roadside without think- ing how easily its charms might be transferred to the door-yard or the porch at home, now bare. Nothing that grows commends itself to us more, on the score both of beauty and usefulness, than this class of plants. The grape type of all the climbers with its inimitable grace of form, neither needing nor admit- ting any touch of man to improve it in this respect, while hanging out at the same time to the sight and offering to the taste its purple and luscious clusters what growth can equal it ? Well, therefore, do the Scriptures take it as the type of all that is most beauti- ful and precious. Israel, God's chosen one, is a vine. A golden vine, curiously carved, we know also, was one of the chief adornments of the temple at Jerusalem. And our blessed Saviour offers himself to us, in his most endearing relation, under the figure of the vine, of which we are, or may be, branches, drinking our life from and bearing fruit with him to the glory of the Heavenly Father. It has been well said VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 89 " beauty is its own excuse for being," and the great Maker has set around us enough of the forms and hues of beauty to show us that it has a value in itself and in his eye, and that the love of the beauti- ful is no unworthy feeling, but one which he would cul- tivate in us by every possible means. And in the vine he has shown us how closely the beautiful and the use- ful are linked together. It is set down as one of the tokens of prosperity un- der the reign of King Solomon that " Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree." It would be better for us if we were to be- come more Oriental in our habits, in this respect at least, and, in the season of warmth and leafage, were to sit more than we do under our vines, if not under our fig- trees ; if, after the day's work, there were rest and pleas- ant talk under the grape arbor, or if the tea-table were occasionally spread beneath the vine trellis, and the fla- vor of the hyson were mingled with that of the blossoms or the clusters of the grape. They do this over the wa- ter, and we shall, sometime, perhaps, learn to do the same. In Germany and France especially, one may often see whole families taking their repast, and partic- ularly the evening meal, in the open air. It is health- ful healthful not less to mind than to body. It helps to gather a tender feeling about the home. The very soil gets a more hallowed association, and the children will turn to it in after-life with a sweeter affection and a stronger attachment. It draws them into sympathy G 90 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. with nature herself, and tends to inspire them with her precious influences. It is surprising what a charm is sometimes given to a very ordinary and humble dwelling by one of these climbing vines. Who has not felt, in traversing some country road, the power of a prairie rose, climbing up by the door-side and over the simple porch of a low -roofed farm-house, to dignify, and even glorify, what otherwise would have been passed by without no- tice, and to draw tender thoughts and feelings towards the unknown dwellers within ? And then there is the trumpet creeper, aptly named from its great, red, trum- pet-shaped flowers, and in respect to which one is at a loss whether most to admire its flaming clusters of blos- soms or its delicate foliage. What a grand climber this is ! How it mantles walls and buildings with its beauty ! We carry in mind now the picture of one of these, seen more than twenty years ago in one of our Connecticut towns. It was a low stone building, erected in the prim- itive days, but now with its roof ready to fall in, and it was tenanted only by a couple too poor to have a better shelter from the cold and storm. But over that build- ing, scarred and seamed by time, climbing up its sides, and fairly rioting over its long stretch of roof, and cover- ing its stone chimney, which it almost smothered in its loving and luxuriant embrace, went that royal climber, the living sheet of green, spangled all over with crimson blossoms, so shapely withal and dignified. Why, it seem- ed that those walls of stone might well have been built VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 91 for no other purpose than as a scaffolding to show what a wealth of grace and beauty the Heavenly Father had put into one of these humble plants that run wild about us, asking only the privilege of some support that they may lift themselves up into our sight to bless us with their beauty and lift up our souls with them. And then what shall we say of the hop-vine, the hu- mulus of the botanists, like humility itself drawing its very name from the ground, or humus ? Let us say of it that, like humility, it has a heavenly grace. There is a common way of speaking rather contemptuously of this plant. Is it because of its commonness ? It ought to be so common as to find a place in every door-yard. What a strong, sturdy grower it is ! What a lusty vitality it shows! Ready to burst from the ground at the first approach of springtime, before most other plants have begun to grow, this has climbed up and is looking in at your window to greet you with its beauty, and soon it has gone far into the air with its twining wreaths. Give it a support, a cord reaching up to your roof, and it will climb there in a few weeks ; or, if trained upon a pole with some cross-bars, platform-like, at the top, so that it can hang down its graceful stems like a canopy, there is hardly a finer sight as autumn approaches than this common and modest humulus, with its clusters of golden catkins swaying in every breeze. We are apt to think of the hop from the utilitarian point of view. It suggests beer, and prosaic yeast, and 92 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. the bitter tea which many good old housewives pre- pare as a nervine. But apart from all these and other domestic uses, it is an object of rare beauty, and de- serves to be cultivated, if only on this account. Then there is the convolvulus, or morning-glory, which every one is supposed to know, but the won- derful beauty of which so few do really know. We might say it is the poor man's delight, it is so com- monly found near the cottages of the poor, if it were not so characteristic of almost all this class of plants that they are within reach of those of slender means. There is no one who may not have his grape-vine al- most for the asking, or if he will go into the woods or hedge-rows and dig it. Even the choicest of our grape- vines may now be had by the day-laborer in exchange for an hour or two of his work. The ivy, the wistaria, the Boursault roses, are equally cheap. No one need be without them. No cottage or farm-house need be without the charm of their luxurious beauty. Then there is the honeysuckle tribe graceful, rich in color, and fragrant with odor. How easy to have one or more of these near our dwelling ! How cheap the charms they bring, and all the more precious be- cause they draw around us the added charm of the bees, with their soothing murmur and promise of nec- tar by-and-by, and of the humming-birds with their won- drous beauty of color, miniature rainbows on wings ! Last, but by no means least in value, let us speak of the Virginia creeper, known also as the woodbine and VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 93 the American ivy, though it is not a true ivy, but be- longs to the grape family. It is to be found over a wide extent of country. But no commonness or familiarity can lessen its beauty. Those who have seen it encasing some tall dead trunk, where a forest has been cut away, or completely mantling the walls of some church, robing its tower and even its turret- tops with its veil of green, and then seeming almost to set them aflame when, in the autumn, its leaves ex- change their green for scarlet, need no words from any one to kindle their admiration for this most love- ly climber. Such are a few out of a large class of plants which are adapted, in a remarkable degree, to aid us in impart- ing outward and visible beauty and comfort to our dwellings, and especially to dwellings in the country, and so helping to make country life the more attrac- tive. Besides those which have been mentioned, there are many more of like character, which are peculiarly adapted for culture within doors, lending us their beauty not only in the summer season, but through the long, cold days of winter, when all our vines in the open air, in the Northern States at least, are obliged to drop their leaves and their beauty together. The English ivy and the German, and many other plants more delicate in structure, are ready to our hand for the decoration of the rooms we daily occupy, so that we need, at no season of the year, to be without the charm of these graceful climbers. 94: VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE, And one thing more may be said in regard to this class of plants before we leave them. They are not only most beautiful in themselves, but they are at the same time our best means of hiding from sight much that may be deformed or otherwise repulsive to the sight. A squash-vine in the garden, with its massive leaves and golden blossoms cups fit for royalty itself will beautify while it conceals a compost-heap. So, is the dwelling, or some building near it, bare and rude, or unpleasing in form and proportion, let a vine or a creeper mantle its side or hang along its cornice, and the deformity is hidden and beauty takes its place. And thus in many ways these rapid growers, which may so easily be trained to go wherever we will, may be made available for a double use to offer us the charm of their own beauty and loveliness, and to shut from sight what we would have concealed. FKUITS AND FLOWERS. 95 CHAPTER XL FRUITS AND FLOWERS. "To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." WORDSWOKTH. AMONG the many divinities to whom the ancient Romans paid honor were Flora and Pomona, the dei- ties of flowers and fruits. And not the least worthy of a place in the most serious regard of any people are those products over which these fancied divinities were thought to preside. Which of the two affords most pleasure to man it might be difficult to decide ; for, while the fruits are at the same time grateful to the taste and valuable as a means of sustaining life, the flowers appeal at once to the senses of sight and smell, and offer a more constant and varied source of delight. But we need not discuss the comparative merits of the two sources of pleasure, since both are within the reach of almost every one. The more im- portant fact to be considered is that few of us make as much of either as we might. We neither have as many flowers or fruits as we might have, nor do we derive from them as much pleasure as they are capable 96 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. of giving us. Why this is so it might not be easy to determine. It would seem to be by some depravity of nature, for flowers are everywhere in exhaustless profusion, and fruits follow flowers, and both offer themselves to man to be improved by his culture to an extent which knows hardly any limit. Every year surprises us with the discovery of new flowers or the development of some new beauty and grace in the old and well-known ones ; while the fruit-culturist is con- stantly rewarded by the gain of new varieties, or the marked improvement of the old in the qualities which make them pleasurable or useful. In the country, then, in and around our village homes, where land space is abundant, flowers and fruits ought to abound. The fairest show of these products of nature should not be found, as is now so often the case, in the city or the market-town rather than in the open country. Our villages, with their farms and cottages, ought to be rich and beautiful with these proper products of the soil. Flowers are a sign of taste and culture, and we never see a flowering plant set in the window of a dwelling, however humble, but that we think the better of the inmates on account of it. Some of the household, we know, may be coarse; but that bloom- ing plant, cheap and common though it may be, grow- ing perhaps in no vase of elegant proportions, but, perchance, in some broken piece of crockery no longer able to do its duty in the cupboard or on the table, FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 97 tells unmistakably that in some heart, at least, in that home in the heart of mother or daughter there is a real love of the beautiful, and a refinement of feeling which breaks out from the drudgeries of its surroundings and asserts itself in this way, bringing itself thus into communion with the whole outward world of nature, and with the whole realm of taste and culture. And every such sign of taste and love for the beauty of nature is to be encouraged. Children should be in- cited oftener than they are to have their little flower- gardens. It is one of the commonest desires of chil- dren, as they see others cultivating flowering plants, to have some of their own. And if this desire were properly gratified, especially if they were given a pleasant and well-prepared place for their floriculture, instead of some out-of-the-way, weedy, and undesirable spot, as is commonly the case, and if they were helped to tend and watch the growing plants, and to notice from time to time the wonderful developments of their growth, there would be established in them a love of nature and a taste for the beautiful that would go with them through life, and make their life all the healthier and better. Nor should the cultivation of flowers be thought something more appropriate for girls than for boys. We make a difference here that we should not. It would be a special blessing to our boys if, from their youngest years, they were incited to sow the seeds 98 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. of various plants and then to watch and assist their growth, and thus become acquainted with the laws of nature and with the beautiful and wondrous processes of vegetable life. It would cultivate their observing faculties. It would store their minds with valuable knowledge. It would soften and refine their man- ners. It would give us a succession of grown-up men, more intelligent, and therefore more capable of man- aging, the affairs of husbandry and making farm-life successful, than the mass of our farmers now are ; while it would also make them more refined and taste- ful, and the work of the farmer more tasteful also. Then husbands would not, as now they sometimes do, look upon the flower-beds in the garden as so much land wasted, and the time given to their care by the wife or daughters as so much time misspent or taken from more important uses ; but husband and wife, and sons and daughters, would be in harmony of feeling, and all would delight to co-operate in embellishing their home and blessing their daily life with the beauty and cheer which flowers are capable of giving. Such a common and accordant employment would also tend to draw the family together and strengthen the bond of attachment to each other, and would do much to withstand those influences the effect of which is, too often, to loosen the ties of domestic life, and to make the home less precious and attractive than it should be. But where there is a love of flowers and a desire to FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 99 cultivate them, mistakes are not uufrequently made which lessen the pleasure that flowers might give. One mistake often made is that of cultivating all sorts of flowers indiscriminately. Slips and seeds are eagerly caught up and thrust into the garden, with little thought or knowledge of their character or habits, and the re- sult is an incongruous growth, a wild disorder of beauty, which almost turns beauty into deformity. For the best effect and the greatest enjoyment in the care of flowers, it is best, in most cases, to confine attention and expend care upon a few plants, rather than to en- deavor to have many. It is better to have a few of choice character and perfect in growth than to have ever so many which are imperfectly developed. One or two roses, carefully tended, so as to bring out their completeness of form and color, will give more pleas- ure in their cultivation and be a richer embellishment to the house grounds than a gardenful left to grow as they may. So of other flowers. There is more pleas- ure in being intimately acquainted with a few than in having only a general knowledge of many. Another mistake is made sometimes in cultivating plants, wheth- er rare or common, which bloom unfrequently, it may be only once in the year, and have no attractions except for a brief period, rather than those which bloom much oftener, perhaps blossom almost continuously. The flower-garden thus often becomes an unsightly place, a wilderness of stalks, with only occasional flowers. It is much better every way, far more satisfactory, to be con- 100 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. tent with such constantly blooming plants as the per- petual or Bourbon roses, the salvias, pansies, daisies, portulacas, geraniums, verbenas, alyssums, asters, and the like, with only a few of the rarer kinds. Then, as to the embellishment which flowers give to a village home, in distinction from the pleasure which they give to the cultivator as he or she tends and watches them from day to day, it is better to cultivate each kind of flowering plant by itself than to have the various kinds intermingled in the same bed. Unpleasant con- trasts of color are thus avoided. The tasteful eye is often pained by the inharmonious combination of colors, so that flowers, beautiful in themselves and when prop- erly arranged, now cease to give pleasure. We may add also that flowers appear more beautiful and are more effective as embellishments of grounds when they are planted in masses in the green turf of the lawn or door- yard than when set in beds in the garden. When plant- ed in the garden, the plants will have large spaces of bare earth visible between or around them. The more the ground can be concealed and only solid masses of flowers left visible, relieved against the green turf, the more pleasing the effect ; and there is no way in which this can be better secured than by growing flowers, each kind by itself, or at least those harmonizing in color, in beds cut out of the closely shaven greensward. These beds, let us also say, should not be raised up into mounds, as is so often the practice. In our sunny and hot summer climate most plants need all the rain which falls upon FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 101 them. But where the ground in which they stand is heaped into mounds, a large part of the rain is carried away from the plants, with the common result of a parch- ing arid withering that make the flower-garden too often anything but a pleasant object to look at. Time and labor are, for the most part, wasted which are employed in constructing mounds or beds of fanciful or elaborate pattern for the flower-garden. These may please at first by their evidence of care and good intention, but they are difficult to keep in their proper shape. The very work of cultivating the flowers, as well as the tread of feet in visiting them, tends to impair the perfectness of their shape, and unless this is preserved, they cease to please. In this case, as in so many others, simplicity is better than what is more elaborate and expensive. Our costliest things are not the most needful nor the most satisfactory. If we want flowers, we can have them ; the poorest can have them. No heaping-np of mounds or elaborate shaping of ground is necessary. Flowers never look more beautiful than when seeming to spring out of the green grass ; and it only requires an occasion- al cutting of the grass roots, so that they shall not en- croach upon the space designed for the flowering plants, and these may then be left almost to themselves. With a mass of flowers of one color, or of harmonious colors, bedded in the green turf, and here and there another, differing somewhat, it may be, in size and shape, and a climbing rose or honeysuckle perhaps over the doorway, what a charm may be given to almost any dwelling-place ! 102 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. But shall we confine the cultivation of flowers to the open ground and the open season of the year, or shall we have them with us at all seasons, and in the house as well as in the garden or on the lawn ? This is some- what a question of expense as well as of taste. Through- out the northern portion of our country, flowers are a forbidden thing out of doors for half the year. During the long winter months we must resort to the florist if we would have them, or we must create an artificial summer in our houses, or in some apartment specially arranged for the purpose. Happily, in these days, our improved methods of warming afford us the ready means of supplying that protection from the cold which flowering plants demand. By the use of our self-feed- ing stoves, in which we can keep a continuous fire dur- ing the entire winter, or by means of a furnace, we are able to maintain such a temperature in a single room, or throughout the whole house, that it is quite practi- cable to protect even tender plants from the severest cold, and to have their bright colors and fragrance with us all the year. It would be a great accession to many of our country houses if better appliances for warming them were introduced, so that the presence of flowers might be had there at all seasons of the year. Our farmers and villagers would find it a cheap expenditure. Saying nothing of the gain on the score of health and general comfort from having a warmer and more uni- form temperature secured throughout their rooms, the cheerful effect of bright blooming plants here and there FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 103 about the house, and their refining influence, would be worth much more than their cost every year. They would make the house more inviting and more satisfy- ing to all the inmates, and tend to the production or the confirming of a spirit of contentment. It would be one of the things that would help to attach the children to their home, to make them feel that it is a home, and not a place merely for shelter and food, and so to make them less disposed than they now often are to forsake it for something pleasanter. Everything that increases the comforts and attractions of the home makes other places less attractive in comparison with it. Make the surroundings of the house pleasant and healthful, with green and graceful lawns, bright flowers, and intermin- gled and properly balanced sunshine and shade; with proper drainage and shaping of grounds, so that no un- wholesome damps or noxious matters shall hang about the premises to offend the senses or threaten the health. Make the interior arrangements of the house cheerful and pleasant. Let there be sunshine within as well as without. Let there be no best room, never to be used except on state occasions, but all the rooms good and ready for use. Let all be well furnished, though it may be inexpensively, and the children have rooms which they can call their own, fitted up with some care, and warmed for them, perhaps, in the cold winter nights. In such homes children will grow up with strong roots of attachment to hold them there. There is enough wasted on many farms and country places to make VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. them very palaces of comfort and beauty if it were saved and properly applied in practical use. The Bible tells us that God has made everything beautiful in its season. And if he has made things beautiful, we may be assured it is for a good purpose, and that we do well to love the beautiful, and to bring ourselves into con- tact with it wherever we can. The gospel of beauty needs to be preached as well as the gospel of goodness ; and, indeed, it is preached wherever a blossom unfolds itself to the sight. The flowers are God's messengers, designed to touch us with the sense of something more and higher than the merely useful, to lift us above the narrow questions, "What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" " The life is more than meat." The life is more than food. It consists in thoughts and feelings, and these are closely connected with the sense of the beautiful. And if the Creator has made the flowers to be especial- ly the types and ministers of beauty, we shall do well to surround ourselves with them, and to cultivate their fellowship in our grounds and in our dwellings. Closely related as they are, after what we have said of flowers, we need not say much in respect to fruits. That we might have more of them, and of better quality and more desirable than what we now have, is clear. What a few in every town and village have might be had by almost every owner of a few acres, or even a few rods. There are usually two or three persons in every farming community who are noted for the abun- FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 105 dance and quality of the fruits which they cultivate and send to market. They are a class by themselves, thought to be of a somewhat higher order of farmers and cultivators than those who limit themselves to the growing of corn, potatoes, and the like. They are of a higher order, inasmuch as they include in the range of their work what the others are either too ignorant or too lacking in enterprise to undertake. But what the few have is clearly within the reach of the rest. The cultivation of fruit requires care and at- tention, as does the cultivation of anything else. Trees bearing desirable fruit do not spring up spontaneously and grow luxuriantly of their own accord. The origi- nal crab-apple, perhaps, did so ; but the Baldwin or the Spitzenberg does not. So with the many other fruits which we prize. But, with a reasonable amount of care, these fruits may be had by almost any owner of the soil. They may be had with such care as almost any cultivator can give without detriment to his other work. A great deal of this care .can be given when such work is not pressing, and in the odd moments or odd hours of time which otherwise would very like- ly be lost. Most of our fruits, probably, have been raised in this easy and inexpensive way, and yet the value of our fruit crop taken together is even now quite noticeable. The census report gives the num- ber of acres devoted to vines and fruit-trees as 4,500,- 000, and the estimated value of fruit products is as fol- lows : H 106 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. Apples $50,400,000 Pears 14,130,000 Peaches 56, 135,000 Grapes .' . . . 2, 1 1 8,900 Strawberries 5,000,000 Other fruits 10,432,800 Total $138,216,700 This amounts in' value to nearly half that of our wheat crop, one of our great staples. Great as this amount is in the aggregate, it is only a beginning of what our fruit crop might be, and with advantage to us in every way. On the score of health, a larger consumption of fruit is desirable. It is probable, also, that the agree- ableness of fruit to the taste will cause the use of it to keep pace with its increased production. The modern processes of preserving fruits by canning, drying, and otherwise, and the use of refrigerator cars and ships, by which they can be transported long distances, tend, also, to increase their consumption. By these means the evils of unequal production in different years are avoid- ed. The excessive product of a favorable year, instead of being largely wasted, is carried over in part into a less favorable one, and thus an even supply is secured. By the same means, also, a large European market is secured for our fruits. So, practically, the market for good fruit is now unlimited, and there is abundant en- couragement for the fruit-grower. Ninety thousand barrels of apples are reported as having been sent to Liverpool alone in the month of December, 1877. The exports during the whole year amounted to nearly FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 107 $3,000,000. In 1871 they were only $509,000. This shows a rapid increase. Our exports of dried fruits for the year 1876 to 1877 amounted to 14,318,052 pounds. Thus we are beginning to send our apples, peaches, and other fruits abroad in exchange for the figs, oranges, and grapes which we have so long import- ed from the countries across the sea. But this is only the beginning. The exportation thus begun will in- crease many fold. And how pleasant it is to the cultivators of fruit to have it in variety and abundance, none know better than themselves. How agreeable fruit is to the taste, what a contribution it is to the enjoyment of life, we all know, in a measure at least. We might enjoy it much more than we do, and find it contributing more largely than it does both to our comfort and happiness. On the score of health alone, we should find in the greater abundance and more common use of fruit an ample compensation for the cost of its attainment. Let the flowers and the fruits, then, receive more at- tention. On all accounts such attention is desirable. It will repay us in more ways than one. It will add at once to the charm and to the profit of village life. 108 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. CHAPTER XII. THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. "Until common-sense finds its way into architecture there can be but little hope for it." KDSKIN. " Houses are built to live in, and not to look on ; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. " BACON. WHAT should be the structure in which .our village residents may find the most fitting home? The ques- tion implies that not every structure called a dwelling is appropriate for those whose home is in the open coun- try. A house is not simply a contrivance for shelter, or something a certain number of cubic feet in dimensions, and therefore capable of containing a given number of animals, and furnishing them with the needful conven- iences for eating and sleeping. It is the home of hu- man beings; it is the nursery and abode of all those feelings and sentiments which distinguish the human creature, and which are so different from all that be- longs to the mere animal. Every house should have su- preme reference to this in its plan ; and when we see so many structures occupied by man which were mani- festly built with no such reference to the peculiarly hu- man elements of our nature, we have only to say that they are buildings, and not properly houses at all. THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. But even when the attempt is made to provide for these inner wants of the man, his spiritual and aesthetic nature, there are certain limitations to our work, arising from various sources. Not to discuss these here, which is unnecessary, it is enough to say that the less available space for building in the city or populous town will necessarily modify the character of the structures there as compared with those in the open country. There cannot be that freedom and variety of arrangement, nor the same choice of material or position, which there is in the latter. We expect in the city a certain uni- formity of style in building, because the excessive cost of land obliges the generality of house-builders to con- struct their houses upon a very limited ground-space. Hence we have, and are content to have, because we deem it an inevitable necessity, whole streets and blocks where the houses are indistinguishable from one an- other except by the street numbers upon their doors. Were it not for these, one would be as likely to go into his neighbor's house as his own. In the country we are happily able to avoid this tiresome uniformity, this merging one's self in the mass, this loss of individuality. Here there is room for each one to house himself as he will. He may fit a house to himself instead of fit- ting himself to a house, as he is obliged to do in the city. And this is as it should be ; for where there are no forbidding limitations, each person or family ought to indicate its own character somewhat by the structure in which it dwells. The house is for the man, not the HO VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. man for the house ; and in the ideal state of things the house of an intellectual and refined family should as certainly indicate by its very exterior that it is not the abode of the coarse and sensual, as the shell of the nau- tilus tells us that it is not the home of the periwinkle or the clam. And though we may not hope to reach this ideal, we may and should approximate towards it more nearly than we do. At present it is only here and there that we see a dwelling having a character of its own, and indicating the character of those who occupy it. To a great extent our country houses are mere imitations of one another, or they are so many cubical structures having as little meaning as a like number of magnified dry-goods boxes. The imitations, moreover, are usually without reason mere whims or conceits. Some one has perchance added a new feature to the former customary house of the place, and forthwith every new house must be a copy of his, or at least a copy of that particular feature. It is amusing to see how far this copying dis- position will go, and what little and meaningless things seem to satisfy it. You may go into some of our most respectable and well-built villages and find, for exam- ple, the conceit of painting that part of the house-wall which is under a piazza-roof of a different color from the rest. The house will be white, of course, but this little piazza bit will be yellow perhaps, or green, or blue, it matters not which, only for some reason, or want of reason, it must be of another color from the general mass of the house. And this petty conceit will run THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. perhaps through the whole village. In another village a different but equally meaningless conceit will be seen to be characteristic of the place. For all good country building, for all good building anywhere, the first requisite is, as Ruskin intimates, common-sense. Let there be a reason for everything ; and if one has a reason for everything he does in the way of building, he will not be likely to go far astray. The question to be asked all the while and at every point is, "For what use is this or that to be done?" Putting this question of use foremost, it will at once be seen that the house of the farmer will call for a differ- ent sort of rooms or a different arrangement of them from what will be called for by the mechanic or the professional man. The dairy-farmer, again, will need a house somewhat varying from that of one whose fann- ing processes are different. Then, in addition to these reasons for building one kind of a house rather than an- other, there will come in the size of one's family, the pecuniary ability and the peculiar tastes and habits of the family. All these things are to be considered, and all have a legitimate influence in deciding what the house shall be. But there are still other considerations to be regarded. Prominent among these are climate and the natural features or peculiarities of one's place of abode. One would not build in the same style amid the rugged hills of New England as upon the smooth plains of the West or the savannas of the South. The heavy snows of the 112 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. former region call for a high-pitched roof that will carry their burden or slide it speedily to the ground. The very lines of the hills also, and the tapering ever- greens which so commonly meet the eye, demand, if the house is to be in keeping with them, that its lines should tend upward. For the same reason a level re- gion will suggest as appropriate a style whose lines tend in a horizontal direction. Speaking architecturally, the Gothic, or Pointed, and the Italian styles represent these upright and horizontal lines ; and these styles, or modi- fications of them, will be chosen accordingly as one's place of abode is assimilated in its prevalent outlines to the one or the other. That style will be best, in any given case, w r hich produces a structure so in keeping with its surroundings that it seems to have grown out of the ground rather than to have been placed there artificially or by construction. The question is an important one " Of what material shall we build?" The abundance of wood hitherto in most parts of our country, the fact that almost every householder could gather the material for his house upon his own land, and get it ready for the carpenter at little cost to himself, except his own labor, has led to the almost exclusive use of this material in the construction of our country houses. Coupled with the abundance and cheapness of wood, there has been a prejudice in the villages against the use of stone and brick. Houses built of these latter materials have been frequently damp and unwholesome. But this has been THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. H3 owing to a faulty method of construction. Usually no provision has been made to prevent dampness from coming up and filling the walls of the house from the cellar below. Then, in addition to this, the plastering has commonly been placed immediately in contact with the walls, and thus the moisture has been constant- ly and directly brought into the various rooms. All that is necessary to prevent such a result is that just above the level of the ground there should be a course of stone in the walls of a slaty character, which will prevent the dampness from being carried up by capil- lary attraction ; or that a few courses of stone, or brick, if the walls are of that material, should be laid in ce- ment, which will intercept the moisture. Then, as a protection from the dampness which might be absorbed from the rains or the damp atmosphere, let strips of wood an inch in thickness be nailed to the walls at suitable intervals, and the lathing be applied to these in- stead of being placed directly upon the brick or stone. This will form an air-space between the outer wall of the house and the inner wall of plastering, which will effectually exclude all dampness. Many of our old houses which have long been unwholesome on account of moisture arising from the faulty mode of construc- tion just adverted to, have been renovated and made wholesome by simply applying strips to the old walls, and putting a new surface of lath and plaster upon these, thus creating the requisite air-space. The advantages of brick and stone over wood as ma- 114: VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. terials for building are so great that we are disposed to say that nothing but great difficulty in procuring them should make one willing to build of wood. The first cost may be somewhat more than if the latter material is used. But as an offset to this, brick and stone are much more substantial and durable. A building con- structed of these, when completed, is finished once for all. On the other hand, a wooden structure is never finished. It is all the while subject to decay. It is only by covering it with pigments, encasing it in lead every few years, that we are able to preserve it for any con- siderable length of time. The cost of these frequent paintings, and the repairs which come in spite of paint- ing, will soon make the cost of the w r ooden building equal to one of stone. But in many cases it would cost no more at first to build of stone than of wood, did we but take counsel of common-sense. There are multitudes of places in New England, and in other parts of the country, where there are rocks lying on the very ground where one would wish to build, ready to be broken to pieces and wrought into walls for the dwelling ; or where, by quarrying only a few feet below the surface, the build- er may often find an abundance of stone. Now, if he will only be content to lay the stone up in a rough but solid manner, not expending labor and mon- ey to dress it to a smooth surface, but leaving the un- hewn pieces in their native form and honest beauty, his walls need cost him but little. If he wants orna- THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. H5 ment, let him seek that also, as he may legitimately, in a cheap way and from a source close at hand, and better than any craftsman's chisel can give him. His rough wall is just what the vines of various kinds love to cling to. Let him plant them on this side and that, and allow them to run over his house, chimneys and all, without fear of their injuring it. Nothing adds such a charm to the exterior of a house in the country, or, for that matter, to a house in the city, as one or more vines climbing up its sides, and holding it in their tender, lov- ing embrace ; and one of the difficulties with our preva- lent wooden houses is that we cannot allow 7 the vines to run upon them freely, as we would often like to do, be- cause we must tear them down every few years in order to paint the houses ; or if they are suffered to cling to them, they promote their decay. Nothing can be better, nothing in the long run more satisfactory, than one of these simple, rough, and solid structures, vine-clad and mantled year by year with their garniture of leaves and blossoms. It harmonizes completely with nature around it, and year by year the touches of time, instead of threatening its decay and destruction, only mellow its hue, and make it more attractive. Such a house seems a living thing, a growth, in which one may have per- petual delight, and with which he may live in a constant sweet fellowship. In this it differs from any painted wooden structure whatsoever. Such a house may be elaborate in finish within, or it may be as simple as its exterior, and BO is adapted to the use of those differing 116 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. greatly in fortune. To those of restricted means it will suggest a correspondingly plain and simple furniture in many rooms, much of which perhaps the helpful hands of the household will construct. It will be a home of taste and frugality rather than of show or extravagance. It will be within and without a true village home. Next in value to stone as a building material are bricks ; but inferior, as being artificial, and, as common- ly used, by no means as expressive. But we might put this material to better use than we do. In Europe, some of the finest buildings are constructed of bricks. By moulding them of various forms, and combining differ- ent colors, we can obtain very fine effects in brickwork. The last few years have given us some illustrations of what may be done in this way ; and it is to be hoped that our monotonous and meaningless red-brick struct- ures will give way to something more pleasing. Well- burned bricks are a much more durable material for building than many of the softer stones ; and for color nothing can be better than that of the so-called " Mil- waukee brick," for example, which is made in many places in our Western States. This color, ranging from a cream tint to almost a positive straw color, is one of the best for its general harmony with objects around ; and, varied in its effect, as it may be by combining with it stones or bricks of a different hue, it is all that can be desired. For use in the country, it is better to seek the effect given by color and plain but decided mouldings and projections in ordinary rough bricks than to expend THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. money in building with the carefully pressed bricks and with the nice and elaborate finish which they require. Their place is the city rather than the country. But whether stone, bricks, or wood be chosen as the material w r ith which to build, there are some considera- tions equally applicable to all. As to site, the utmost care should be taken to fix upon a spot which can be effectively drained, and which is not in the vicinity of standing water. The researches which have been made within a few years by physicians and sanitary com- missions have abundantly proved that the permanent presence of water in the soil upon which a dwelling is built, or the presence of standing water near it, is a source of some of our most fatal diseases. The aim, therefore, should be to secure a site free from this dan- ger. The bottoms of valleys are also to be avoided, not only on this account, but because any dampness or mi- asmatic influence engendered upon the hills around is likely to flow down into them. The summits of high hills, however, are to be shunned, on account of the trouble involved in climbing to them, and because of their exposure to "winds and storms. One should build under the shelter of a hill, upon its southern, sunny slope, rather than upon its summit. In the larger part of our country the advantage of such a situation will be felt during the greater part of the year, and amid the heats of summer such an exposure will be more favored by the grateful and mitigating breezes than almost any other. If one can build his house near a 118 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. wood, so that he may have that as a screen from the cold winds, let him do so. He will find the trees a charming background for his dwelling, and a source of comfort and pleasure in many ways. A little care will enable one, in most of our states, to establish him- self on some wooded or partially wooded slope, where all the demands of healthfulness shall be met, and from which he may look out upon a pleasant landscape. In a country of so much natural beauty as ours, it is a pity that so many have fixed their homes, seemingly, with so little reference either to comfort or pleasantness. We have said if one can build near a wood, let him do so. Near a wood, but not in it. It is a great mistake for one to bury himself in a forest. We need sunshine more than shade, and can better dis- pense with the latter than the former. Woods are de- sirable for a screen, and to give certain pleasant effects to the surroundings of a home, but this does not re- quire that we should be under their shadows or the drippings of their branches. They are better farther away. Their effectiveness as a screen from winter blasts is as complete when several rods distant as when they are close by us, and for all effects of beauty and embellishment a little distance is quite desirable. If one can have two or three well -grown trees in the immediate vicinity of his house, it is enough. But sunshine he must have, and he should have it in every room of his house, even in pantries and store-rooms, for they are the sweeter for a sun-bath every day. THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. H9 On this account our houses should not be made to face, as they usually do, the cardinal points of the com- pass, but rather be set diagonally in reference to them ; in other words, the corners of the house, and not its sides, should face those points. For the same reason our streets should not run in north and south, east and west, directions, but diagonally to those courses. Then at some time in the course of the day the sun would shine upon all sides of the house, and therefore into every room in it, whereas now the rooms upon the north side of our houses, during the winter months, are unvisited by the sun, and every one knows that they are the least comfortable and least pleasant rooms. Our country houses have too commonly been either of the shabby or the showy sort, rather than homes of comfort and taste. They have been either cheap and ill-built structures, destitute of every sign of hu- man taste, mere barns almost, or they have been pre- tentious, built more for show than for convenience and daily use and comfort. What is wanted is a style of buildings which, while differing among themselves in minor features, even as persons and families differ in look and character, shall yet have a common appear- ance of having been made for human beings to dwell in, and to be the home of tender and refined feelings and tastes. On the one hand, simplicity will be adorn- ed and dignified by taste and refinement, and, on the other, the most elaborate structure will be elaborate only for purposes of utility and comfort, and not 120 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. for show or display. We want no show-rooms in the country, no rooms to be opened only on company oc- casions. City style and manners may, perhaps, call for these. But in the country house no room and no furni- ture should be too good for the daily use and enjoyment of the household. "We are not called upon to treat our neighbors and visitors better than ourselves. There is no sufficient reason why the largest and pleasantest chamber should be kept in reserve for a chance visitor to occupy only once or twice a year, and the well- furnished parlor be opened only when " we have com- pany." It is a wrong to ourselves to do so. Those who occupy the house three hundred and sixty-five days of the year ought to have the best of it rather than the visitor of a day or an hour. We want the refining influence of the best surroundings. It is bar- barous in tendency for a family to spend the larger part of its time in the kitchen and in small and scant- ily furnished bedrooms. The children need the cult- ure and refining influence which come from familiarity with the best things that can be put within their reach ; and to be brought up within sight of show-rooms and nice furniture, which yet they must not enjoy, gives them false ideas of life, teaches them to put show for substance, and prepares them to grow up with a double character, a feeling that it matters little how or in what spirit they habitually live, if only they can put on the proper appearance when occasion demands. Let the best, then, be used used by all the household. THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. Let the amplest rooms, the best furniture, and the finest prospects from windows be the daily enjoyment of all. If visitors come, let them have that truest and pleasantest welcome, a share with the family of those things which they daily use, rather than special privi- leges and attentions, which latter would keep them all the while from being at ease. We are persuaded that if many of our village families would move forward from their rear offices and cramped bedrooms so as to occupy the ampler apartments now so often closed for the greater part of the time, devoting the abandoned rooms to conveniences which now they lack, making them into wash-rooms, bath-rooms, and store-rooms, a new life would dawn upon them, and they would soon wonder how they could have lived as they did, when the means of better living were all the while at hand. Such a removal would lift the whole family life to a new and higher plane. It would make it more dignified and more tasteful. It would inspire it with new ideas and feelings. It would cultivate and in- tensify the home feeling. It would form new ties to hold the family together and give a new meaning to the word home. This is not a treatise on architecture, or we might say much more on the construction of the country dwell- ing-house. We assume that one about to build a house in the country will call in the aid of a competent archi- tect, or, if we may not assume this, we urge it upon all as the best means of securing a satisfactory result. I 122 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. Every dwelling, as we have said, ought to be to some extent an expression of the character of its occupants. It should indicate by its appearance, its site, its form, its surroundings, what sort of people have it for their home. Therefore every house should be planned by those who are to live in it. They know best what they want a house for, and, consequently, w y hat kind of a house they want. On this account, they should deter- mine its general and many of its particular arrange- ments. Yet, even in these an architect may often make suggestions of the utmost importance, w r hich will essentially modify the plan of the builder. It is the business of an architect to deal with the various details and modifications of structures. He is conversant with the possible alterations of plan, and the adaptations of means to uses. He has thought of them, and made them familiar to his mind as they cannot be to any other class. Few persons about to build have anything more than a rude idea of what they want. The proper adjustment of rooms to one another, so as best to serve the purposes of the building and the comfort of the oc- cupants, they are quite incapable of determining, while in regard to the proper architectural form of the struct- ure, within and without, they know almost nothing. And this is simply because it is not their business to know these things. It is the part of true wisdom, therefore, for every one who is about to build him a house, to consult an architect from the beginning. Nor let it be thought that where the contemplated THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. 123 structure is to be of the humbler sort, because there is little money which can be expended for its con- struction, the services of an architect can be dispensed with, and a saving of cost be secured thereby. On the contrary, it is in the case of the smaller and cheap- er class of structures that the greatest advantage is to be secured by the services of the architect. His taste and knowledge of his art will enable him to put the money and materials placed at his disposal into the most serviceable and tasteful shape, and procure for his employer that which will be permanently satisfying. But let no one mistake the mere carpenter for an archi- tect. The one who contemplates building a house will have to go to the neighboring town or city, probably, to find one who can fitly be called an architect, for no village can furnish sufficient employment to induce one to make his residence there. But it will be worth one's while to go twenty-five or fifty miles, or even more, if need be, in order to secure the services of an architect. If he had a suit at law pending, or a legal question to be settled, involving only a small amount, he would not hesitate to travel as far and to be at any expense necessary to secure proper professional advice. So let him take his case or question of building to the archi- tect and tell him what he wants, and then leave it with him to make a plan for him and a contract, with proper specifications, just as when any one commits his case to a lawyer he leaves its management with him. In the case of the building the result involves, not the gain or loss 124: VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. of a small debt or the recovery of a piece of property, but the construction of that which, by its tasteful form, and convenience of arrangement, and substantial quali- ty, is to be a life-long comfort and pleasure, or, for want of these, a continual source of disappointment and re- gret. The commission paid to a good architect for his services is probably the most profitable expenditure in- curred in building a house. But some will not take the trouble to seek the advice of an architect, or will not deem it expedient. Let us make a few suggestions, therefore, for such and for any who may heed them. They will be in the main such as any good architect would make. Having fixed upon a proper site for the building, one sheltered rather than exposed, withdrawn somewhat from the street and the noise and dust of the passers-by, rather than thrust conspicuously upon the view, if there is not absolute exemption from dampness resulting from standing water in the neighborhood or from a wet and springy subsoil, the first thing to be done is to thor- oughly underdrain, by means of tiles, or ditches four feet in depth and partially filled with stones at the bot- tom, the whole vicinity of the house. Let these drains lead the wet away from the house, and let one, at least, be connected with the cellar, and at such a depth that no water can by any possibility find standing-place there. Let there be no mistake or neglect in this mat- ter 'of drainage. There are many pieces of ground which appear dry upon the surface, but which, owing THE COUNTRY DWELLING-HOUSE. 125 to a tenacious subsoil or to the abundance of springs near at hand, are saturated with moisture. One who has not tried the experiment will be surprised to see the quantity of water which will escape from drains properly constructed in such ground, and how con- stant will be the flow. It is only by such drains that moist land can be made a healthful place for a dwell- ing, or be brought into the best condition for tillage. It is safe, indeed, to presume that almost every site chosen for a village' residence will be improved, both as to healthfulness and profitable cultivation of the ground, by being thoroughly underdrained. The site being thus properly chosen and prepared, let the contemplated building be planned consistently and intelligently as a whole. Let its outward shape, and color, if possible, be in harmony with the site and its surroundings. A house in the country, where land is usually abundant and one is not limited in ground- space, should spread out laterally and rest broadly upon the soil, rather than be lifted high into the air upon a narrow foundation after the manner of city houses. It should seem to grow out of the ground almost, and to rest solidly upon it, bidding defiance to any storms that may sweep along ; and as one family need or convenience after another may call for more room here and there, let this be gained by proper additions on the one side or the other, and thus let the house ramble out on the ground as though a live and growing thing. It will be all the prettier and 126 VILLAGES AND VILLAGE LIFE. better for so doing, for thus freely moulding itself to the wants of its occupants. Of course, as already intimated, we should prefer to build of stone, hoping to find it near at hand, and thus to build solidly, and make the house, though but the simplest cottage, all the more a part of the solid earth itself ; and we should choose our stone so as to get not only solidity, but a pleasing tint of color, if possible in harmony with objects around. On the one hand, we would avoid a very dark-colored stone, as giving a too sombre effect to the house ; though even then, if the walls are laid up in a rough way, and with stones for the most part of small dimensions, the mortar will serve to lighten up the color. On the other hand, if we were building in the vicinity of a quarry of marble of purest white, we should prefer to go some distance in order to secure stone of a different color. Nature, in all her bouquet of colors, does not give us white except in bits, as in the flowers. She does not give us white in masses. Even her marble is white only when freshly broken open, and then she hastens to cover its surface again with a softer and more pleasant tint, toning down its glare and bringing it into harmony with surrounding objects. The winter snows, to be sure, are white, but there are special reasons for this, and we all know how disagreeable the whiteness is how, oftentimes, we have to hide it from our eyes