If You're Going to Live in the Country

by Thomas H. Ormsbee; Renee Richmond Huntley Ormsbee

In the home owner's dream of country life, green lawns, rose gardens, and shady terraces have loomed large; but in the actual fulfillment, his house has of necessity come first. Beyond a sketchy clearing up of the most obvious debris, he may well come to the end of his first summer with practically nothing done to the grounds themselves. This is not entirely a disadvantage. It has been shown how too much may be done to a house in the first fervor of remodeling or restoration. It is the same with the land surrounding it.

The old adage, "Begin as you can hold out," is an excellent rule to follow. One of the advantages gained by living in an area just beyond the suburban fringe is that one's two, five, or ten acres may be developed as much or as little as one desires or can pay for. This holds whether you have built a new house in the middle of a former pasture or have restored an old one with grounds well developed but long neglected.

SKILLFUL PLANTING OF TREES, SHRUBS, AND FLOWERS MAKE THE SETTING
Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho. Robertson Ward, architect

Of course, you will not lack for advice from friends and acquaintances, most of the people who have never grown anything more extensive than a window box. They will tell you that the old lawn that has withstood the tread of feet for more than a century is uneven and must be plowed under, re-graded, and a special kind of lawn-grass sown. The driveway is all wrong, too. Turn it back into lawn and build a new one winding through the field to the left where the family cow was once pastured. They are also kind enough to suggest that a plowing, grading, and seeding of this additional acre or so will give you a piece of greensward worth having. A lily pool and sun dial garden would go nicely over there to the east, and how about that hollow place over in the south corner for a swimming pool? All this and much more can be suggested but it is surprising how little of it is practical.

Even long neglected grounds seldom require as thorough a job of face lifting. A lawn free of hollows is difficult to achieve and almost impossible to maintain. Nature does not do things that way, so work with her rather than against her. It is surprising how old and seemingly worn-out grounds respond to kind treatment. Study them first before doing anything. Take stock of existing trees, shrubs and the like. Notice the contour of the land. Then make a simple landscaping plan. This, well thought out, will give direction to the eventual development of the plot of ground you have in mind. Work gradually. If you are reclaiming an old place, remember the original owner did not achieve everything in a week or a year. Nature cannot be hurried. It is true that, if one desires shade trees and cannot wait for them to grow, experts can bring full-grown ones from their nurseries and plant them in the positions you designate. Such practices run into money, however, and would hardly come within the average family budget.

Let us suppose that the home owner finds himself in possession of a house of uncertain age and between ten and twenty acres of land. Unless he is prepared to maintain a miniature conservation corps, he will not attempt to keep over two acres in active cultivation. Even with those he will not push back the wilderness in one season. The first step is a careful inspection of the grounds around the house. If they have been neglected for years, he may find practically anything except grass growing. If the average tenant farmer has lived there any length of time, the area at the back lying at easy tossing distance from the back door may contain a wealth of tin cans, bottles, broken dishes, and other debris. These, of course, must all be picked up and either carried away by the rubbish collector or otherwise disposed of. We have read of clever people who managed to persuade members of their family and any visiting friends that such an undertaking could be made into a sort of treasure hunt and one's grounds cleaned painlessly and without added expense. It did not work with our family. A cache of twenty-five fine rusty cans nestling under the lilacs elicited nothing beyond a mild query as to the likelihood of lily of the valley thriving in the spot.

So we hired the man whose family had spent ten long years accumulating the debris, to clean the half acre surrounding the house and he made a very neat workmanlike job of it. Afterward he commented on the improved appearance, especially of the back yard. "Yes, it looks considerable better," he said, "but of course I couldn't keep it that way. I'm a poor man and my time is worth sixty cents an hour. I can't afford to spend any of it picking up after myself."

His philosophy is apparently not uncommon and one may expect to find anything on the land from rusty scythe blades to broken down farm wagons and automobiles. After these have been removed the place will look decidedly improved even though a mossy growth under the maples denotes sour soil, and burdocks and milkweed in the back indicate good soil gone wrong. Along with ridding the grounds of rubbish comes the question of what to do with the various outbuildings. Those that can be put to practical use should be repaired and their foundations pointed up. Any others should be torn down as a dilapidated structure of any sort is not only unsightly but a breeding place for rats.