STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 73 



In these days of estheticism and cheapness of pictures, f ac-similes 

 of works of art, and tlo\Yers in such perfection, titfrt- is no excuse for 

 neglect of thi-s home de})artnient. nay, to neglect this would seem 

 like a direct sin of ingratitude. 



Dugald Stewart- says of Milton's Mind Creation of Paradise, 

 *' The jiower of imagination is unlimited. She can create, annihilate 

 and disperse at pleasure, her woods, her rocks and her rivers. Mil- 

 ton could not copy his Eden from any one scene, but would select 

 from each the features which were the most eminently beautiful." 

 So we can bring into our homes all the beauty which art and nature 

 have bestowed. Culling from earth, air and sea until like Milton, 

 who made of Paradise a home for man, we can of home make a 

 Paradise for him. 



We niav, by willful or enforced blindness, live in a world devoid 

 o\ both beauty and brightness. In our large cities we often see 

 homes made in underground hovels, huts and cellars, hotbeds of vice 

 and drunkenness, whose inmates grow to be barbarous in their ideas, 

 uncouth in their manners; in their dress ragged and untidy; coarse 

 antJ brutal in character, without the least desire for, and a total 

 ignorance of, a better life. So we see that the wealth, stability, 

 virtue and future hope of our country lies in the homes of industry, 

 beauty and honest thrift. 



To make a home attractive seems to be the especial province of 

 woman, her husband, sons and daughters being her "Advisory 

 Hoard." And to the yard, garden and house constitutes the three 

 tlivisions of one perfect whole, for it is hard to conceive of a home 

 without a yard and garden. Let us consider them in their order. 



This home is wholly ours, free from debt or mortgage; the 

 pigsty, the henhouse and barn; those home-like and homely adjuncts 

 placed in a retired position and their occupants kept apart from lawn 

 and garden; our lawn smooth and grassy; not too much shrubbery; 

 a cool, inviting atmosphere of shade must prevail, shade in which 

 to swing a ham;nock, or place a rustic seat; a spot for lawn tennis 

 or croquet. Our iiovver garden must have a sunny place, if where 

 all who pass by can enjoy our beauties, all well, yet we must not 

 sacrihce sunshine and good drainage — two things essential to success 

 in floriculture. 



Here we may be able to revel among the beauty and enjoy the 

 health which a little time and labor each day will be ours, gathering 

 daily inspiration for beauty and health for tlie future from our two- 

 fold benefactor; when we can, by taking a little thought,<,have sum- 

 mer all the year around by forecasting a succession of bloom, and 

 having a reserve corps to carry into the conservatory or bay window 

 when relentless winter drives us into the house. 



If we cannot afford elaborate designs from the hands of the 

 landscape gardener, let us endeavor to cover up all deformities of 

 straight lines and acute angles by a luxuriousness of growth and a 



