File:American homes and gardens (1912) (17969719620).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar91912newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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December, 1912 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 419 This switchboard has ammeters of the Weston type, both for reading the current of battery on charge and discharge and also a generator output. Also, a voltmeter with switches to enable the potential of either the generator or battery as a whole to be ascertained. The telephone and signaling cir- cuits are carried in an underground, lead-covered cable, having fourteen wires. These include the local telephone and door-lock circuits, public telephone, and two buzzer cir- cuits, one to give notice when the ante-room door at the bridge opens and one giving notice of the approach of an electric car when the latter is still a mile distant, and two circuits in reserve for emergency use. Underlying the bungalow is a snug and perfectly ap- pointed stone basement with its various rooms. Muckross also includes a twenty-acre farm on which live the servants. Here cows, horses, pigs and chickens are raised side by side with their untamed brethren. Thus the estate is self-pro- ducing, since it yields milk, butter, eggs, poultry and garden truck, to say nothing of its fishing and wild game. But as an incentive, all proceeds of the farm above, the current expenses of the estate, are shared by the servants. Per- haps it is unnecessary to mention that the yield therefrom is truly surprising. About a third of the acreage of Muckross is timber land, 80,000 White Pines having been set out within the first two years of its existence, and it is anticipated that in thirty years the timber will pay for the investment. The estate is well stocked with game, having perhaps as its choicest asset a hundred head of deer, which were purchased as other cattle. Also three and a half miles of natural trout brook with three artificial ponds stocked with native and rainbow trout. The largest of these ponds—each of which is equipped with canoes and rowboats—covers sixteen acres. While the "Falls," just below, which is five hundred feet from its entrance into the Black River, plunges over a nearly vertical ledge—a distance of 114 feet. Thus, by means of a reinforced concrete dam and a small hydro-electric plant located nearby, the Falls furnishes sufficient power to gener- ate electricity for lighting the bungalow, the garage across the bridge, and out-buildings; brilliantly illumines the bridge and paths twining about the grounds with incandescent elec- tric lamps mounted in special weatherproof fixtures designed especially for the purpose; operates the electric range in the kitchen, heaters for rooms and all service water. In asking Mr. Woolson how he happened to establish such an unusual habitat for "just a lone man," he replied: "Through my love for hunting and fishing, and its conse- quent camp life. But," he added, "since living here I've so learned to love the wild creatures of the woods that I can't kill them as I used to. Perhaps this is due to an experience I had after my first purchase of deer. For I was just re- turning from a day's hunting when a young doe, appearing in the flat beyond, was such a pretty shot that I up and fired. She fell. But when I reached her she raised her head and looked at me with such a piteous pleading in her soft eyes that it sickened me, and particularly as I further witnessed the heart-gripping grief of her mate. And I resolved then and there never again to kill merely for the 'sport.' And for months after I wouldn't look at a gun. Until now," and Mr. Woolson smiled benignly, "it has become nothing less than an ambition to so woo these shy creatures that event- ually they will not flee at my coming, but will recognize me as their friend and protector." This growth of tenderness for animals is not exactly the record borne by St. Francis d'Assisi or Henry Thoreau, as they always had the faculty of charming the wild denizens of wood, air and water, so that they came to their hands; a power which may yet fall to the master of Muckross in his weaponless sylvan tramps.
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A wide-covered porch runs across the bungalow at "Muckross'

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