182 STATE BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



that you hate to part with but which looks rather scraggy. Make everything 

 appear as natural as possible ; it is in good taste and a matter of economy. 



It isn't to be supposed that everything about even the best of farm-houses is 

 open to the inspection of everybody. There is tlie wood yard, the clothes yard, 

 and outbuildings that it is desirable to screen from view. Evergreens are just 

 the thing to employ. The spruces and tlie pines grow rapidly and can be so 

 placed as to make a most natural group and answer the other purpose as well. 



One word more about planting. Give as much variety to your grounds as is 

 possible, and avoid right lines. These are stiff and monotonous. If you have 

 a stilted tree like the Lombardy poplar, hide by planting at its base, the lower 

 part of it ; and if you have a low grower that you wish to give a place of prom- 

 inence put on a rise of ground. 



Tlie Expense. 



And now how is the farmer to meet the labor and expense of all this? I know 

 the farmer's hands are always full; he works early and late and has little time 

 for recreation, but I beg leave to offer three suggestions : First, The farmer 

 should be more of a business man, in order to gain time. The merchant has 

 his business hours, and sticks to them religiously. The mechanic has no time 

 during his work hours for visiting or entertaining friends. The farmer, too 

 often, is ready to stop his work and lean over the fence by the hour, talking 

 politics or telling stories. His city friends come, and he gives the day to them ; 

 an auction calls him away to spend time and money. When the farmer makes 

 his business a system, and looks npon his time as so much money, then he will 

 have more time. His recreation will be guided by a plan, and his landscaping 

 can be his recreation. It is better than going berrying, or fishing, or hunting. 

 But mind you I do not take exception to even these, if the time can be spared. 



Again, might not some of the little vices of using tobacco and beer be sup- 

 planted by interest and money put into the home grounds, and that, too, with 

 a good deal better effect and more lasting enjoyment? 



Once more, I offer this as a suggestion : that the adornment of the home 

 grounds be a family work in which every member is to take a decided part and 

 interest. The children of a well ordered family might perform nearly all the 

 labor connected with the lawn and the flower-garden. The pruning and the 

 cultivating can be done by them, and be called amusement ; and how rich will 

 be their reward ! In the growtli of each species they learn its habits and its 

 value. In the adornment of home they are adorning their own characters with 

 graces that will develop with the years and grant to them influence for good; 

 and farther on, when they leave the old home and are taken from the pleasant 

 associations that surround it, they will have that laid up in memory which will 

 come back to them, softening their hearts and declining years of life with the 

 beautiful home of childhood. The beauty of home that is of the children's 

 making is not wasted in one generation, but children and children's children 

 are tempered by it, and no man can compute its value. How grand and beau- 

 tiful, and yet how simple in its conception and consummation. 



Mr. A. C. Satterlee, of Greenville, read the following essay on 



WHEAT CULTUKE. 



Wheat has never been found growing wild, but it is said to be perfected by 

 constant cultivation from a kind of grass. It has always been used as an article 



