298 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Operandi. Nor can it be for the lack of means; for where but a few years 

 since the children of the pioneer contested their right to sunshine and air 

 with the domestic animals around the door of his rude cabin, now exten- 

 sive farms and comfortable homes appear, many of them supplied with all 

 the elegancies of our city mansions. But few homes nestle beneath the 

 shade and shelter of majestic trees, where the tables are supplied with fruit 

 fresh from the trees and vines, where a well-kept lawn, interspersed with 

 shrubbery and flowers, invites its inmates out into the bracing atmosphere 

 and health-bestowing labor that is required to perpetuate this loveliness. 

 Is it not rather for the reason that, as a people, we appreciate only that 

 which gives a quick return in dollars and cents? The unfolding of our 

 highest capabilities is little thought of. At fairs, thousands of dollars are 

 offered for the fleetest horses and finest animals, possibly a hundred for 

 floral exhibitions and fine arts. When we realize that material wealth is 

 not the greatest blessing, more attention will be given to the arts and 

 sciences, and all that tends to refine and elevate humanity. Then will 

 the villager value each foot of land about his home too highly to have it 

 overrun with weeds and rubbish, when a few hours, now spent in idleness, 

 will cause every inch to yield fragrance and beauty, not only to himself 

 and family, but for his neighbor. He is a public benefactor who plants 

 trees and shrubs about his own home, even : 



" Scatter seeds of the beautiful, 

 By the wayside let them fall ; 

 Plant a rose by the cottage gate, 

 A vine by the garden wall." 



The citizen must be content to entwine his windows with delicate 

 vines; he rnay curtain them with living green, gemmed with hues more 

 brilliant than diamonds, that no tapestry can equal. The solitary farm 

 house, too often a prison for the self-sacrificed wife and mother, should, 

 of all homes, abound in vine-wreathed porticos and flower-gemmed lawns. 

 On our thinly populated prairies we cannot enjoy the lecture, the lyceum 

 and concert, nor can we participate to any great extent in social gather- 

 ings. But the iron steed makes haste to bring the great outside world to 

 our door ; its lectures, conventions and histories, all cheer our winter 

 evenings. And if we will, we can enliven every leisure moment, adorning 

 and rendering cheerful these otherwise dreary homes, with simple, cheap 

 and beautiful emblems of purity and contentment, which, combined with 

 the sweet wild-wood notes of myriad songsters, the waving grain, shim- 

 mering in the sunshine, and the contented herds grazing in the meadow, 

 or resting in the shade, constitutes a home such as all poetical minds look 

 forward to as the highest felicity this earth affords. A few such homes 

 may be found, where the happy families are united in weaving chains of 

 memory, more precious than gold, enduring as life, binding them to each 

 other and to their homes. Would there were more such. Every mother 

 has a right to a plot of well-prepared soil for herself and little ones to 

 cultivate in floral treasures, and should enforce that right. Children are 

 not utilitarians, and in order to secure their services, work must be ren- 

 dered attractive. They love the beautiful, and it is astonishing how 



