We have given less veranda to this house than to the last, because its
style does not require it, and it is a cheaper and less pains-taking
establishment throughout, although, perhaps, quite as convenient in its
arrangement as the other. The veranda may, however, be continued round
the two ends of the house, if required. A screen, or belt of privet,
or low evergreens may be planted in a circular form from the front
right-hand corner of the dwelling, to the corresponding corner of the
rear offices, enclosing a clothes drying yard, and cutting them off from
too sightly an exposure from the lawn in front. The opposite end of the
house, which may be termed its _business_ front, may open to the
every-day approach to the house, and be treated as convenience may
determine.
For the _tree_ decoration of this establishment, evergreens may come in
for a share of attraction. Their conical, tapering points will
correspond well with its general architecture, and add strikingly to its
effect; otherwise the remarks already given on the subject of park and
lawn plantation will suffice. As, however, in the position where this
establishment is supposed to be erected, land is plenty, ample area
should be appropriated to its convenience, and no pinched or
parsimonious spirit should detract from giving it the fullest effect in
an allowance of ground. Nor need the ground devoted to such purposes be
at all lost, or unappropriated; various uses can be made of it, yielding
both pleasure and profit, to which a future chapter will refer; and it
is one of the chief pleasures of retired residence to cultivate, in the
right place, such incidental objects of interest as tend to gratify,
as well as to instruct, in whatever appertains to the elevation of our
thoughts, and the improvement of our condition. All these, in their
place, should be drawn about our dwellings, to render them as agreeable
and attractive as our ingenuity and labor may command.