it leaves the springs has a temperature of about 42° Fahr. In warm weather it sometimes reaches as high as 50° in the reservoir and in the buildings as high as 55° to 57°. The reservoir is 100 rods from the residence. Pressure at the house is about ninety-five pounds per square inch. The supply pipe from the reservoir is laid five feet deep. The reservoir supplies the residence, creamery, stables, boiler-room and the three cottages. The cost of the entire plant has been about $1,000. An air-pressure system for residence. A galvanized steel tank of 200 gallons capacity is in the cellar of the house. This is air-tight and has a discharge pipe from its lowest point. A special pump is provided to pump the water from the well into the tank. By turning an air-cock provided for that purpose the same pump may be used to force air into the tank. First, air is pumped in until the gauge registers about ten pounds pressure. This amount of pressure is sufficient if the water does not have to be forced higher than 22 feet. The water may be carried as high as necessary merely by increasing the air-pressure. Then water is pumped into the tank until the pressure gauge registers twenty-five pounds. It requires ten to fifteen minutes' pumping each morning to provide enough water for the family (six persons). On washdays it is necessary to pump to a higher pressure or to pump more than once. If the plumbing is good and care is exercised to prevent escape of air, it is not necessary to pump air into the tank very often. This system has proved very satisfactory. The water is kept in good condition by the action of the air on it; being in the cellar it keeps cool in summer and is not in danger of freezing in winter. It is much easier to support a tank in the cellar than in the top of the house, and there is not so much danger of trouble from its springing a leak. The apparatus is patented. A hot-water tank attached to the kitchen stove provides hot water for laundry-tubs in the basement, sink in the kitchen, and the bathroom on the second story. In the bathroom there is a wash-bowl, closet and bathtub. The installation of the system cost about $200, including all plumbing. CHAPTER IX RURAL ART NTEREST IN OUTDOOR ART has two phases, the expression of the countryside as a whole, and the character of individual properties. Every person is interested in his community as well as in his farm: what the community is in both physical and social features is therefore of great concern to him. No 6 No 5 It is everybody's concern how the neighborhood looks. One slovenly place is a blot on the neighborhood. The scenery is one of the assets of a country; and the appraisal of this asset is bound to increase with time, because the educated mind is always sensitive to its surroundings. Any person who needlessly or ignorantly despoils the scenery is guilty of an offense to the community, whether so recognized in law or not. The highways are the property of the public: therefore no person has a moral right to use them for the display of advertising signs without the consent of all persons that use the highways; and if persons tacitly consent, it is evidence that they are not sensitive to the beauties and meaning of the wayside. The offense is heightened when the advertising signs are both ugly and untrue; and it should become wholly unbearable when the signs are vulgar and vicious. Signs advertising private business have no right on fences, rocks, trees and roadside buildings. They are a public nuisance. The law may not yet recognize them definitely as nuisances, for our legal measure of a nuisance lies chiefly in the fact that the object or practice interferes with public health. Neither may a man recover damages of one who puts an offensive sign opposite his door, although he may recover if another injures his business in ever so small degree. All this means that the law may not keep pace with advanced public No.4 No. 2 孔 No.3 No.1 GARDEN PUBLIC HIGHWAY Fig. 423. Rectangular subdivision of a farm, in the flat and homogeneous country of the plains. sentiment; and it is admission that in the question of damages we yet stand mostly on the basis of money. The time will come when a person may not offend his neighbor's eye with any more impunity than he now offends his purse. As soon as any community rises to the point of desiring offensive objects removed, the law will be made to cover the cases; and this is already being done in some places with offensive advertising signs. Rural art has a much wider scope, however, than merely to remove unsightly and offensive objects. It is constructive. It will make the rural scenery artistic in composition, and keep it so. There is now a widespread discussion of the art of city building, considering not only how the city may be fundamentally effective, convenient, well-constructed and sanitary, but also how it may be attractive and even beautiful in its entirety as well as in some of its parts. There is also need of discussing the art of country making, an art that is yet unwritten and even unnamed. The first consideration in the country, as in the city, is to make it effective for the kinds of affairs that are to be conducted there: this also will be the first step toward making it artistic, for in fields as well as in buildings the beautiful must first be fit. The expression of the countryside may be heightened by the preservation of certain great natural features, the proper subdivision of the farms, the character of buildings and the arrangement of them, the layout of roadways, the planting or utilizing of the roadsides, the kinds of fences, the proper planting of bushes and trees in home and other grounds, the absence of objectionable objects, the good keeping of private and public property. Advantage must be taken of every interesting natural condition or object. This is so easily said that it is likely to make no impression; but it is difficult to execute, because it depends on personal appreciation of these conditions and surroundings. This appreciation is now growing rapidly. We shall have societies to further these various objects. Fig. 424. An irregular division of a farm, following contours. We have already discussed the interest of the public in such private property as buildings and fences. We have also suggested (page 144) that the public is concerned even in the layout of the farm. There is such a thing as an inartistic subdivision of a farm. In a flat country, the subdivisions may or may not best be on strict rectangular lines; but in a hilly country it is manifestly both inconvenient and ungraceful to follow such lines. It is strange how deeply the feeling for right lines is seated in the general mind. Note that we still lay out towns in straight lines even on steep hillsides. It is said that a rectangular and symmet rical layout of a farm is most practical and convenient (Fig. 423): it may be or it may not be. In general, the layout should conform to the contour. If a farm is divided by a stream or bluff, it may be best for the lanes to follow these natural boundaries, even though the boundaries are not straight. (Fig. 424.) This may mean better grades, more directness, less expense in maintenance. A natural-soil or sod roadway may be better on such contours Fig. 425. An attractive rectangular layout of a countryside. Near Victoria, British Columbia. than a gravel roadway in other places. The tilled fields may be on one side of the roadway or lane, and the woods, natural pastures or waste-land on the other side. Such an arrangement would usually make for the good looks of the place as a whole. There is a beauty of rectangular lines and another beauty of flowing lines. The discussion of landscape gardening is usually confined to definite areas or properties, as yards, parks, school-grounds. It has scarcely touched the larger phases. The best American writing on this larger aspect is "Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect," a book of more than 700 pages, being a memorial by President Eliot, of Fig. 426. A farm in the hill country, laid out on the contour lines. Harvard, to his lamented son. There are a number of books devoted to the layout and adornment of premises, as Downing's two books, Landscape Gardening and Rural Essays; Kemp, Landscape Gardening; Van Rensselaer, Art Out of Doors; Waugh, Landscape Gardening; Parsons, How to Plan Home Grounds; Maynard, Landscape Gardening as Applied to Home Decoration; Long, Ornamental Gardening for Americans; Scott, Suburban Home Grounds; Bailey, Garden-Making. TASTEFUL FARM YARDS The primary consideration in the construction of a building is to make it serve its purpose as directly as possible; and the second step is to consider the general mass-effect rather than the details. The same order should be observed in the layout of the grounds. Many persons, to judge by the results, conceive of a yard only as a place to set out plants: they must have roses or hydrangeas, particularly if the nursery agent displays the glories of these subjects. This is like thinking of a house as a construction for the display of fancy chimneys and glowing paint. What kind of trees and bushes to plant represents the final stage, not the first, in the making of a good yard. The yard affords a setting for the buildings; it Fig. 427. A tasteful farm yard, with an open-centered lawn and naturally planted border. Openings in the border permit glimpses of the lake and hills beyond. connects the buildings; it provides access to the highway, the well, the barn; it provides space for various kinds of service. Everything about the yard should be convenient: the grades should be 66 easy," particularly in the direction in which there is much travel; the surface should be smooth enough to allow of easy mowing; the walks should connect the different parts in the most direct and pleasant way; the drive, if any, should be such that it is easy to drive over and to keep clean; there should be no objects or plantings that require the expenditure of much time in tending. Everything about the yard should be "in keeping" or in good taste: if a farm yard, it should be simple and unpretentious; it should be large and generous; it should have a good turf; in some part of it there should be shade and an attractive place in which to sit or lie in warm weather; it should look "natural," - that is, nature-like, free, country-like, devoid of primp and oddity, harmonious. It should express a home-like feeling. These remarks do not mean that strictly formal and geometrical gardens are always to be avoided. On the contrary, there are many cases in which such treatment is much to be desired, but these cases seldom occur in farm premises and therefore they are not considered here. This discussion brings up the saddest part of farm life, the fact that so many of the places are not home-like. Here lies the very root of most of the discontent with the farm in the minds of the young. One can not blame a youth for desiring not to remain in an unattractive place; we should rather think him lacking in gumption and imagination if he desired to remain in such a place. One can drive over almost any farm road and find places in which nobody would care to live. It would be unnecessary to inquire at the house why the boys and girls are leaving the farm. Most of these places are either bare or untidy, usually both. One may well wonder how it is possible for some persons to keep their places so bare of attractive vegetation. It would seem as if they must spend more effort in preventing trees and bushes from growing, than would be required to plant and Fig. 428. Planting massed at the sides and an open center. The walk is direct. The general effect is good. The house is of the city type. tend a grove or a shrubbery. Abandoned houses soon come to be attractive because of the trees and bushes that grow about them unmolested and unscared. The picture in the landscape. There are some farm premises of which one feels that he would like a picture to hang on his walls. There are others of which he would not possess a picture even if it were offered in a gilt frame. It is worth while to recall the places that one knows, and see in which category they fall. After one has classified the places in this way, he should try to determine why he has done so. Almost before one knows it, he will hit upon the essentials of a good place. It is excellent practice to analyze the impressions and to jot down the results. Probably the first result of the analysis will be a feeling that one likes the place as a whole, for the general impression that the entire scene makes, rather than because particular trees or other objects please. In other words, the scene is a picture, not merely a collection of objects. If the home Fig. 429. A shelter-belt for a cold country. scene is a picture, then it almost necessarily has the following points: The place is well-clothed, or furnished, with trees and shrubbery; The residence is prominent and has a good setting; There is an open space of sward, if it is in a grass-growing country; The trees and smaller plants are mostly massed or grouped at the sides or in the rear, rather than scattered all over the place; There are no unnecessary fences, walks or drives; There are no mere curiosities conspicuously placed in the yard, as piles of stones, odd rocks, shells, pieces of statuary; The place is neat and picked up, looking as if it has good care and as if the residents love it. In Fig. 427 is shown a lawn that combines many of these suggestions. The house, built of native stone, has a good outlook. The open-centered lawn is bordered by natural planting. Openings in the border permit of glimpses of the lake and hills beyond. The contrasts of Figs. 428 and 430 are suggestive. Some specific suggestions. The commonest fault with farm yards is that they seem to have no thought or care bestowed on them. If care is given them, however, the effort is likely to be expended in scattering plants here and there or in making "beds" in the sward; and this is usually worse than nothing at all, because it Fig. 430. Scattered and aimless planting. A bank of shrubbery against the side of the porch, and an open greensward, would have been much more tasteful. emphasizes the value that is placed on individual and trifling objects rather than on the place as a whole. Such yards are usually given over to the care of the women. Many persons buy furniture in the same spirit-a certain chair merely because it is handsome as a chair, without considering whether it is in keeping with the house or with the other furniture. Many houses might well pass for furniture stores; many yards might well pass as nurseries. It is a good rule to set out no plant until one is sure that it is needed as a part of the general effect that one is trying to produce. Merely because a plant is "pretty" is no reason for planting it. There should be some scheme, and all the planting should fall in with the scheme. What this scheme shall be cannot be answered off-hand, for every place is a problem by itself; yet a few general rules or suggestions can be given: (1) Lay out or plan the place. Plan the walks and drives and fences (if any must be had) so that they will best serve the purpose for which they are needed. It is always a help to make a map of the |