The Press., 1908-12-09
THE RARE CHARMS OF STAF-
 FORD AS A HOME.
To the Editor of The Press =

had recently spent two years il Europe. for my health. and had re
 turned slightly better, but. onl,
 slightly. Subsequent to the purohas of my farm (before had discoverel
 it's entrancing charms and its re storative qualities) I went to southern
 California for a year. With a glov
 of great delight recall it's orang, and olive and prune and walnut trees
 tits noble landscapes and seascapes
 it's brilliance and warmth of sunligh
 in mid-winter; but it was not to mt
 a tonic climate, and soon after my re
 turn took possession of my cottage
 here on Rockwell Hill.
 look back to the two years subse lquent as prolonged transport. -st Igreat were the pleasures of country.
 life, with its accessories of garden,
 wood lot, horses and COWS, not tc mention the sociable poultry, as vel as the sociable cats! (If we called cats what they really are, little tigers of high-bred character, and they were scarce. we should esteem them the most wonderful pets in all the world
 But the best of it was that, to g much greater degree than Europe or southern California had Leen, the climate proved to be tonic influence. At the end of the two years was able to go into business and stay there for period of ten years, years of more varied activity in things ao. oomplished than in all of the rest of my life put together. But even this was not the very best of it.
 All life grows in richness and depth to the man or woman, who, by get ting into the country. escapes the maddening rush and whirl of modern |city life; and as an alternative to it finds himself face to face, in all their varied and inexhaustible features, with the charms of Nature. In the country one sees a daily and even hourly procession, in winter as we'll as in summer, of phases of the Divine Nature Itself All the beauties of the picture galleries of the world are in- significant in the comparison. The very habiliments of Deity are one's own.
 Not only this, but one can read history or the great novels, or, for that matter. the daily paper itself, with new sense of their deep mean ing aad SikAificance. And even the newspaper has deep meaning if we but know how to oonstrue its mani fold messages.
 Then there are the pleasures of discovery. The art of agriculture.- if at least we include in it the oulti vation of fruit and flowers, s,-is so largely an unknown realm, that one who tries his little experiment. in it has the very emotions of a pioneer. He reads the descriptions in twenty catalogues of the finest fruits and the most beautiful flowers; then he puts his catalogue aside and starts in on his own account. Sometimes, by his experience, he finds the catalogue is gay deceiverl But how great is the pleasure when he is able to confirm it's good report and find that his particular spot, with it's environ ments of climate and soil, is the ideal I would say, emphatically, that these hill.tops around Stafford Springs are capable of producing as delicious fruit as one can raise anywhere this side of the tropics. For myself, am only just beginning to discover how choice they may be, because all these years I have been starving my trees. But even at that I will submit some of my Duchess or Mcintosh apples, and Sultan and Climax and Abundance plums, and Beurre Bose and D'Anjou and Louis Bon pears, and Crawford or Champion or Crosby peaches, as being as fine in quality as any to be found any W here. Some of these varieties need high cultivation; but given that, and some patience in trimming and pruning. and when the new, beautiful specimens begin to come in, one feels as if he certainly were he. come the father of so many choice babies!
 It is true that in Stafford we do not have the gaudy delights of vaudeville, nor the garish glory of thousands of electric lights to turn night into day (tho' we have few D; and we can not hear Sembrioh and O aruso sing. But we have very great compensation. It is my belief that the sovereign ana specific cure for Americanitis, that is so devastating American life, will be found in 8 resort by myriads to country life. It is my conviction that while country house will at first seem a most in. convenient place for the work of the housewife, she will find in the course of time great consolation. If she can secure no servant girl, she will dis cover the pleasure, and it is lively one l-of handling the odorous shaw ings and sweet-scented maple, oak or hickory for her fire, herself. Even the much-maligned air-tight stove, if only it have a steaming kettle on top of it, sends forth heat more salu- brious and satisfying than any city contrivance that was ever devised. She, and her husband, too, will find in the companionship of the animals. "a wonderful diversion and resource.
 Our village is a small and quiet one, as such things are measured to- day; and certainly, in a sense. iso- lated. I will frankly say that it would seem to me the Village Inn provement society might bestir itself to make the streets and general ap- perance of the village better match to it's beautiful environment. And