No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 365 



OUR COUNTRY HOMES—THE STRONGHOLD OF OUR STATE 



AND NATION. 



UY ISAAC ZIJIMEKMAN, IlichfteUl, JunlaUi Cuunlu, Pa. 



Madam de Stael calls beautiful architecture ''frozen music." And 

 in traveling over our country we notice in many of our villages and 

 rural districts an improvement in buildings over those of former 

 days; but it is not of the architectural part of our homes that I wish 

 to speak this evening, except incidentally; for 



'"Tis not the casket that we prize, 

 But that which in the casket lies." 



Every true home is a poem, whose music finds lodgment in the 

 hearts of its inmates, and expression in beautiful deeds and noble 

 lives. A building may be surrounded by beautiful laws and pictur- 

 esque scenery; may contain expensive material and symmetrical pro- 

 portions; spacious hallways and commodious rooms; luxurious fur- 

 niture and costly musical instruments; large libraries and beautiful 

 pictures; yet with all these externals, unless charity and mutual 

 forbearance, kind natures and loving hearts dwell there, it will lack 

 man}' of the true elements of a home. 



"Home is where the heart is, 



In building large or small; 

 And there's many a splendid palace, 



That's never a home at all." 



As a rule , not from our public thoroughfares and palatial resi- 

 dences, but from the more secluded parts of our country, from homes 

 of humbler pretensions and often from log-cabins, come the men 

 who made American history resplendent with great achievements and 

 heroic deeds. From the "slashes" of the South came Henry Clay, 

 whose brilliant career and eminent services have enshrined his 

 memory in the hearts of grateful millions. From the hills of New 

 Hampshire came Daniel Webster, whose resistless logic "ground to 

 powder" the advocates of state sovereignty and secession, while his 

 genius frequently forged and hurled oratorical thunderbolts which 

 electrified the nation and reverberated through the universe. From 

 the "wilderness" of Ohio came James A. Garfield, whose statesman- 

 ship, forensic oratory and thoughtful and instructive eloquence have 

 blazoned his name high on the roll of our country's celebi'ities; while 

 from an Ohio village and from tlu> banks of the blue Potomac, came 



