TRANSACTIONS OF NORTHERN ILL. HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 275 



No material and no color, for residences, seem better adapted to our 

 part of the country than our soft, gray, native limestones. They make a 

 house enduring as the rugged bluff itself; one that future generations 

 may live in. 



We give these few crude suggestions, being fully persuaded that if the 

 minds of farmers can be turned in this direction, they are not lacking in the 

 good judgment or the fine poetic feeling which would make their efforts a 

 success. The practical study of landscape gardening would improve our 

 rural workers mentally to a degree which can hardly be estimated. The 

 horticulturist and the landscape gardener, who are drawing attention to 

 this subject, are among the true educators of the people. It is a grand 

 thing to feel that one is a worker with God in beautifying the earth. Of 

 course, some mistakes will be made : but in this, as in everything else, it 

 is practice which makes perfect. 



One often feels shocked, on entering beautiful grounds, or an elegant 

 house, to find that the soul of the owner does not correspond with his 

 surroundings. Wealth can buy many things, but it cannot buy that fine 

 harmony which makes one's surroundings a part of himself. To have 

 this, the man must breathe into the scene his own breath of life. 



The beautifying of homes would have a tendency to check the grow- 

 ing vagabondism of our people. Warner says that it is no wonder that 

 people move from one fireplaceless house to another without regret ; but 

 it is certainly no wonder that they move from one unlovely, soulless farm, 

 to another, with restless longing. If we wish to become attached to a 

 place, we must make it a part of ourselves. The influence of agreeable 

 surroundings on the minds of children, too, cannot be overestimated. 

 The memory of some tree on the old homestead often lingers in the mind 

 even to old age. In my own experience, the lofty pines that swung in 

 the moonlight before my chamber window, have never lost their mystic 

 charm. An old pasture, decorated with groups of spreading young pines, 

 interspersed with sunny grass spots, where the cattle loved to feed, is yet 

 as plainly seen by the mind's eye as when I called " Co-bos ! " in boy- 

 hood. 



Let the farmer make his home beautiful, and, if possible, introduce 

 that highest form of beauty, the picturesque. Let him preserve nature's 

 charms, and add to them. The memory of a home, which expresses the 

 best faculties of the mind and heart, will live forever in the mind of the 

 child. 



Mr. McWh(JRi-er thought that the prevailing practice of selecting 

 the more level and uninteresting part of the farm for sites for the build- 

 ings, a serious error ; the more broken and undulating portions being far 

 preferable. 



Mr. Wright asked if evergreens should be planted in straight rows; 

 he thought not, agreeing with the essayist that they are far more effective 

 planted in groups. 



