stretched a bit each year. Now it is the year around. We are but one
of many families that have traded the noise and congestion of city
life for the quiet and isolation of the open country. Nor do all such
cling to the commuting fringe of the larger cities. A good proportion
have their country homes some hours' distant, and the city is only
visited at infrequent intervals.

Wherever his country place is located, however, there are certain
problems confronting the city dweller who takes to rural life. They
are the more baffling because they are not problems at all to his
country-bred neighbors. The latter assume that any adult with a grain
of common sense must know all about such trifles as rotten sills, damp
cellars, hornets that nest in the attic, frozen pipes in winter, and
wells that fail in dry seasons.

Of course, no one treatise can hope to serve as a guide for every
problem that comes with life in the open country. This book is no
compendium. It concerns itself only with the most obvious pitfalls
that lie ahead of one inured to well-serviced city life.




WHY LIVE IN THE COUNTRY?

[Illustration]