876 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sylvan scenery of some winding stream ? Cliildren are good judges of 

 beautiful scenery, and if it is not found in connection with the home- 

 stead, they will seek for it elsewhere. 



Not to dwell at length on the various mistakes most commonly made 

 in homestead arrangements, I will briefly state, people are generally too 

 stingy of the little bit of ground around the house ; they allow no grounds 

 for shady lawns or homestead scenery ; they fence themselves up in a little 

 narrow door-yard, and then, to save steps in doing chores, they get the 

 barn and its numerous appendages closely and conspicuously located, if 

 not exactly in front of the house, at least so as to break the view to the 

 road in a side direction. In short, the arrangements for the comfort, 

 convenience and pleasure of cattle, hogs, chickens and children, are too 

 closely mixed and commingled together. 



Even people who are anxious to have every thing very nice, conceive 

 of no way only the old, stiff", rectangular, square rule plans for every 

 thing — every thing is brought to straight lines and square corners — fences 

 all straight, gate exactly in front, a straight walk to the front door, shade 

 trees arranged in exact military order. Such grounds present no pleasing 

 variety — nothing but the tiresome sameness of straight lines and rectan- 

 gular forms. 



It is difficult to give any very definite rules for homestead arrange- 

 ments, because scarcely any two situations are exactly alike. But, to bring 

 the matter to your minds, we will suppose you are about to prepare for your- 

 self a country home. You are inspired with the beauties of nature — you 

 have listened to "the music of the pines;" and nature's picturesque 

 scenery and flowing outlines have nearly expelled the old rectangular, iron- 

 square plans all out of your mind. You first choose your building site. 

 You do not choose the most level portion of your farm ; because, for your 

 building sites, groves, orchards, and general homestead scenery, you pre- 

 fer grounds somewhat rolling ; and for farming purposes you prefer the 

 level lands. 



You choose a site for your house on a rising swell of ground, some 

 ten or twelve rods from the road. You want room in front of your house 

 for some breadth of grassy lawn, and some pleasing diversity of landscape 

 scenery. 



You next decide on a spot for your barn, back of your house, and 

 not too near, because you want room back of your house for garden and 

 fruit-yard; for you know it is in bad taste to have a fenced-up kitchen 

 garden next to the road. Having chosen the place for your barn and 

 feed-lots off back of the house, you want a lane from these to the public 

 highway ; but you do not want this lane to infringe on the grounds of 

 your house-yard, and you give this lane a graceful curve around your 

 house-grounds. You border this lane with large trees — it gives a rich 

 expression to your homestead. You plant trees of large growth back of 

 your house, that will rise up above the house and partially screen the 

 barn and its appendages from view. You do not commit the blunder of 

 planting all your evergreens exactly in front of the house ; because you 

 know, though they might look well enough there at first, they will, in time, 



