ted to be sure the animals
would be well cared for.

So, before acquiring horses, contemplate the up-keep and make sure you
are prepared to maintain them whether business is good, bad, or
indifferent. For the first year or two a much wiser course is to turn
to the neighborhood riding stable and rent. These have become standard
institutions in many vicinities and they frequently afford not only
excellent mounts but sound teaching for those who know little or
nothing about the finer points of riding.

TIGHTENING FOR WINTER

[Illustration]

_CHAPTER XIV_

TIGHTENING FOR WINTER

The wolf of winter was the arresting phrase originated several years
ago by no less a practitioner of the art of advertising than Bruce
Barton, to drive home the merits of adequate domestic heating. But no
matter how efficient your heating system may be, unless the country
home has been made ready for the cold months, insufficient heat and
excessive fuel bills result.

Against this, there are a number of simple things the home owner may
do himself or have done. Nobody begrudges money spent for fuel that
keeps the house at a comfortable, even temperature. In the days when
six dollars bought a ton of the best anthracite coal and the pea and
buckwheat sizes were sold as waste products, it may have been a
matter of small importance that certain spots in a house leaked heat
and let in cold. Besides, in an era when windows closed tightly with
the first cold blasts of fall and remained so until spring, such
ventilation was probably a life saver. But at the present high prices
for either coal or fuel oil, these points about the house where heat
is lost and winter cold crashes the gate should be taken seriously.

With a new house, of course, everything possible in the nature of
built-in metal weatherstripping and thoroughly insulated exterior
walls were included by the architect when he prepared plans and
specifications. But even he may have ignored one of the most practical
means of conserving warmth. This is a set of storm windows and doors
carefully fitted so they open and shut at will, yet are snug enough so
that little cold penetrates. These are remarkable conservers of heat.
Measured scientifically, the amount that escapes by radiation through
ordinary window glass is amazing. The storm window reduces this to a
minor percentage because the dead-air space between the two
thicknesses of glass acts as an efficient means of insulat