70 TKANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS » 



ders, as the old bachelor did to his young friend contemplating 

 marriage, "don't." A well-kept lawn is beautiful, but that a lawn 

 sprinkled with floral decorations is beautiful, is not so sure. One 

 is always tempted, iu the delightful days of spring, to lay out many 

 times what they have the strength to care for when the heats of 

 July and August come ; so, unless ample help is at hand, we ought not 

 to attempt any extensive out door flower culture. One corner of that 

 kitchen garden devoted to a few choice plants will furnish cut 

 flowers for the season, and be far less exacting in their demands than 

 lawn decorations. We are all familiar with the fascination there is 

 about accumulating plants for winter blooming. We know the 

 woman who adds pot to pot and when they fail, tin cans to the pots, 

 and then tin cans to tin cans, until every window in the living room 

 is effectually darkened by their crowding presence. This woman 

 will take pride in the amount of care she bestows on her plants. I 

 recall a frail woman who, once in two weeks, took down and washed 

 each plant, leaf by leaf, from a large plant stand and bay window, 

 and was always sick the next day to pay for it. Another, who had 

 an ivy of wonderful growth, told me, with an air of satisfaction, 

 that she washed every leaf once a week. You may forgive me — she 

 never did — for asking if she scrubbed the front fence too. 



Another evil needs airing in this connection. About bed-time, 

 in many homes, tables and chairs are placed near the fire, and father, 

 mother and all the children take up a line of march, bringing the 

 plants from the cold window to the protection of the fire, for the 

 night. After all are safely deposited and unmovable ones wrapped 

 in newspaper, the family retire. To rest? Not at all, for if the night 

 be cold, ghostly forms emerge from the sleeping-room at sundry in- 

 tervals to replenish the fire and keep sharp look-out lest any leaf of 

 any plant be frost-touched. This is no unknown picture to many 

 of you, and I say, with all deference to the woman who owns those 

 plants, that it would be better that every pot of them be pitched out 

 into a December night, than that so much of life's strength and 

 comfort be sacrificed to their care. Let no one think I do not love 

 plants and flowers. 1 do — I have proved it by doing the very things 

 spoken of. But reason has returned; I do so no more. It is high 

 time some one was found brave enough to cross swords with those 

 who advocate decoration and adornment to such an extent. If you 

 and I are to have any comfort in this wide world it will be in our 

 own homes. Let us then have a new declaration of independence: 

 Resolved, That since life is short and human strength limited, we 

 adorn our homes with such things — and only such — as do not in- 

 terfere with the comfort of the family. 



Some one says of Sunnyside, Washington Trving's home, that 

 "the sun seemed always to be shining on those walls. Around the 

 house were clumps of shady trees and stretches of rolling sward, 

 traversed by meandering paths. The character of the place was half 



