No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 427 



Some years ago Jeimy Lind came to this country to sing for |l,()iiu 

 a night for P. T. Baruum. When she landed in New York, 20,000 

 people gathered in old Castle Garden to hear her sing, as no other 

 songstress had ever sung. At length the Swedish nightingale 

 thought of her home ; she paused and seemed to fold her wings for a 

 higher flight, and with a deep emotion began to pour forth "Home, 

 Sweet Home.'' The audience could not stand it, an uproar of ap- 

 plause stopped the music, and tears of joy gushed from their eyes 

 like rain dro-ps. At length the music came again, almost angelic, 

 seemingly from Heaven, "Home!" That was the word that seemed 

 to cement, as by magic, 20,000 souls. 



When you can't go anywhere else you can go home. The prodigal 

 son only realized this when he came to himself, like the poor fellow 

 who was out one night and got gloriously drunk, came home near 

 morning and when at the foot of the stairs his wife called down to 

 him: "What's bringing you home this time in the morning?" He 

 straightened up and said: "Every place else (hie) is shut up." 



While the world was laid at Solomon's feet, I often think that he 

 did not have a home, or he would not have said "all is vanity." So 

 many people when they see a beautiful house say "What a tine 

 home!" when it may be anything else but a home. 



"A house is built of briclis and stones, 



Of sills and posts and piers. 

 But a home is built of lovely deeds, 



That stands a thousand years. 

 A house though but an humble cot within its walls may hold, 



A home of priceless beauty rich in loves eternal gold, 

 The men of earth build houses, halls, chambers, roofs and domes, 



But the women of the earth, God knows, the women build the homes." 



Brown stones and pressed brick will not make a home. You must 

 have love and sunshine in the summer time, and love and coal oil in 

 the winter time. I have seen thousands of dollars spent to build a 

 home, and the parties did not get anything but a beautiful house. 



We should strive to beautify the suroundings of our home. I 

 think there is nothing so beautiful to the farm as a field of clover in 

 full bloom, covered with the morning dew and sparkling like mil- 

 lions of diamonds when kissed by the morning sun. So is th*lawn 

 to the home, and to think I never saw a lawn till I was thirty-five 

 years of age. I had often looked at them, but never saw one till I 

 stood in the streets of Boston a few years ago, and I thought I never 

 saw anything so beautiful as they were. I said to myself, God would 

 make the grass grow for the poorest man as well as the rich, and 1 

 came home determined to have a lawn about my home. The next 

 spring the two boys and I started out to move the flowers and flower 

 beds from the middle of the yard, and put the flowers around the 



