272 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



changes to the north, we know that the storm center is passing to the 

 south of us. 



The President called for reports from the standing committee on 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING, 



To which Mr. Carpenter responded by reading a paper ; but as it is not 

 found among the manuscript sent the editor, it is necessarily omitted. 

 Mr. E. Hathaway, from the committee, reported as follows : 



Mr. President : I come before this audience with reluctance. I am 

 a farmer, and have had very little leisure time to devote to the subject 

 which I bring before you. I am only a very humble student, just in the 

 rudiments ; not in any sense of the word a master in the noble art of 

 landscape gardening. But hoping — viewing the subject as I do, from the 

 farmer's standpoint — that some word of mine may reach and influence the 

 class to which I belong, I present the following thoughts : 



Few farmers pay much attention to landscape gardening. Indeed, a 

 disposition to rob the farm of its natural attractions, is quite prevalent. 

 Noble old oaks, standing near fine building sites, are often as thought- 

 lessly cut down as one would cut the corn stalks which grow in a single 

 season. One cannot raise such oaks in a lifetime. Convenience to the 

 road, and handiness to the various out buildings, usually determine the 

 location of the house, and both house and barn are forced up to the very 

 edge of the public highway. Some of the finest and really most conveni- 

 ent building sites, so far as relates to the care and culture of the farm, are 

 lost to their owners, because they are some little distance from the road. 

 The house, usually barren of any expression of refined taste, and shorn 

 beyond help, by its very situation, of that air of rural quietude and rest 

 which should belong to the farmer's life, stares at the passer-by with an 

 air of gossiping curiosity. In the small space between the house and the 

 road — the front yard it is generally called — are placed all that is obtained 

 from far and near, for the purposes of embellishment. The owner forgets 

 how much room the trees and shrubs will need when grown, to give them 

 individuality, and they soon expand into a state of crowded confusion. 

 Sometimes, here and there a lonely little evergreen endeavors to thrust its 

 green point up out of the deciduous thicket. Into this little yard, every 

 thing is gathered, and the farm stretches away dreary and desolate. The 

 usual adornment on farms is but an imitation of village grounds, and 

 shares the same hampered and confined spirit. Instead of the broad, free 

 life of nature, which should be expressed in rural landscape gardening, we 

 breathe in these little tucked up yards the air of the town. 



My object in presenting this paper is to suggest to the farmer some 

 simple and natural plan for improving the face of nature ; some way to 

 surround his home with a great number of attractive objects, at little ex- 

 pense. One thing which has had the effect to keep back progress and 

 culture in this direction, has been the prevailing idea that really fine 



