60 INIASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



I wish this society would offer a premium for the best farm- 

 er's home. It would pay to send a committee all over the State 

 to find it and report upon it — a home around which all the 

 beauties of the natural landscape were improved by all the 

 labor expended upon it — in which it should be shown that no 

 labor had been wasted — a home in which good order, plenty, 

 refinement and contentment reigned. Such a home Massa- 

 chusetts offers to every family in her borders, unless unusual 

 misfortune comes upon them. Her strength and her glory 

 consists in the number of these homes. And what is the 

 value of all this array of industry unless it can be made sub- 

 servient to the comfort and improvement of the people ? And 

 their highest comfort and greatest improvement must be 

 found in the home. Shall we be content, then, to take the 

 choicest parts of this State — diversified by hills and streams 

 — and disfigure them, making them absolutely hideous, as is 

 sometimes done by the carelessness and the thoughtlessness 

 of men ? 



On two pieces of land just alike, two men with the same 

 amount of labor will reach very different results. One will 

 have nothing to attract and delight, — every natural beauty of 

 the place will be marred, — while on the other everything will 

 be pleasant and attractive. A little thought in constructing 

 the house, even if it is a very small and cheap one, placing it 

 in the best position — a little thought in sparing trees or in 

 planting others — a little thought in burning old rubbish or 

 in placing it out of sight, — in a word, thought and taste to 

 guide the hand, will give elegance and comfort without a 

 single hour's additional labor. This care and labor that sim- 

 ply tend to beautify, are too often despised by farmers. They 

 have no time, they sa}^, for such fancy-work. But there is 

 no work performed on the farm which pays better. The farm 

 that has a tasteful, home-like house — adorned with fruit and 

 shade trees, that cost but litfile more than the planting — such 

 a farm at a forced sale, will bring fifty per cent, more than 

 the same farm bare of trees, with a box for a house, and 

 with every mark of neglect around it. It is not a question of 

 labor or of expense, but a question of rightly applying labor 

 to enhance the value of our own property, and of all that 

 adjoins us. The careless, slovenly farmer not only dimin- 



