Beautifying Our Homes. 117 



every newly married couple to plant trees. Let us turn to 

 our young farmers and their wives who have just com- 

 menced their home making, and fancy for a moment that 

 they have made this law unto themselves, they arrange the 

 dwelling, which, in the sweet morning of wedded life they 

 decide shall be a temple of love, clean and pure, then they 

 plant the trees, few and small perhaps, but time which 

 matures all living things, will strengthen their growth, and 

 widen their branches, and spread their leafy banners above 

 the home, and shelter and shade it, and with their growing 

 beauty carry downward through the years, sweet memories 

 of the home planting. 



With the trees a vine should be planted by the door- way 

 no matter how humble it may be, an ivy or a clematis will 

 clothe the cottage with nature's graceful drapery, and give 

 beauty to the landscape. The lawn should always be as 

 spacious as circumstances will permit, and as green and 

 fresh as growing grass can make it. A place should be 

 given very early to annual flowers, they mature so soon that 

 any home may be made lovely with their fragrance and 

 bloom, in a few short weeks. The dwellers in tenement 

 homes should remember this. If annuals are grown in nar- 

 row beds close to the house, it will appear as though set in 

 a frame of flowers, and the work of caring for them is 

 much less than when grown in beds on the lawn. There is 

 no way a dime can be used that will expand into so much 

 beauty as when invested in flower seeds. If only one kind 

 can be grown take the pansies, plant them in rich ground, 

 care for them well, and their bright faces will coax you often 

 to their side, their bright colors will beguile you into their 

 culture, and you will say 



"O beautiful pansies, whatever betide, 



Come bloom in thy beauty my threshold beside." 



With the astors and verbenas another charm will be 

 added to the home, and so of all the long and lovely list. 



Some of the old time perennials, the lilies, the pinks and 

 the peonies, if set where the garden meetB the lawn will 

 require much less care than when grown in groups or beds 



