Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-22

II DLANCHE BATES, the clever ac-
X tress who for three years has
~ been a farmer ION the side, y
writes as follows concerning the pleas
ures of farming in Country Life in
America:
Il wish 1 could persuade my self
supporting sisters, whatever their pro-
fession or business, that there is more
to life than rigging up and parading
the avenue or attending teas. l pa
rade my meadows in any old gown L
see fit to wear, and l attend the after
noon teas of my sheep and horses and
COWS and dogs and chickens and
ducks-and their conversation never
bores me. 1 wish l could persuade city
women that it pays to live in the coun-
try. Getting into town is no hardship
when you get used to it, and getting
out again is a daily recreation for mind
and body.
You don't have to stand still' in any
way. Think of having time-really
two hours time-to read the books
we're always promising to ourselves,
and to re-read the ones we mean to
but never have time for-slaves as We
are in the city to telephones, casual
calls and meetings that mean nothing.
And this in the blessed peace and
noise of growing things - Or, for the
dear soul who enjoys not the life with
in herself, there's the joy of bringing
the tired city worker friend to share
the solitude, to be shown all the home
ly life of the farm, to be slowly but
surely awakened to interest, desire and
finally possession of the same-for
herself
Must Live on a Farm
When I moved from California to
make a home in the east in the spring
of 1906 1t never occurred to me to set
tie in the city. l must have farm or
suffocate. So I set about looking for
one that should be picturesque and that
1 could buy for predetermined sum.
Up in Westchester county 1 found 1t
the old Ira Bailey place-some six
miles back from Ossining- on Hudson.
If 1 were beginning all over again 1
might buy better farm and get better
and quicker results, and yet l am not
sure that the trouble l have taken to
make something of the old place hasn't
been its chief source of satisfaction to
me.
The Ira Bailey farm consisted of sew
enty-eight acres of hilly pasture. most
ly stones, with a bit of woodland, a
hopeless looking marsh and an orchard
badly under the influence of San Jose
scale. The farmhouse was built in
1897 and hadn't been painted for thirty
years and the barns were in bad shape.
The money that 1 spent in fixing things
up I have counted in with the initial
investment and the interest in that en-
tire sum, plus taxes, amounts to $1,000
or $1,000 a year, which l call house rent.
I know I shouldn't be satisfied with
anything 1 could get in New York for
that sum.
The house had renodeled, preserv-
ing everything I could. The old kitch-
en-, with its big fireplace, is now my
dining room, and the old ax-heWn
rafters stiI remain untouched with
some of the old hardwood pegs that
were used originally in place of nails.
Door latches, stairs and banisters. all
are just as they used to be. The only
really new things are the heater the
kitchen range and bathroom. The sec
ond story 1 made habitable by adding
dormer windows; otherwise the lines of
the house remain unchanged.
I have tried to be consistent in the
furnishings, too, for though the living
room is furnished chiefly with my Chi