114 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



For hanging baskets stiff pasteboard is used. These, tastefully made and 

 filled with dried grasses or with mosses and everlasting flowers, are as pretty 

 ■and ornamental as anything can be, even for the more richly appointed rooms 

 •of the wealthy. If you cannot, or do not (as it seems to me everybody should) 

 "Cultivate a few plants, the Everlastings (Helichrysums, Rhodanthas, Acrolinums, 

 and others of similar nature), make rather pretty, though somewhat artificial- 

 looking winter bouquets, but are much better than no flowers. Most of them 

 should be cut just as the buds are about to open, the very double ones can re- 

 main on until nearly fully expanded ; then dry them as directed for grasses. 

 I can not better convey my idea of how to ornament a home, where means are 

 limited, than by describing my own living or sitting room. 



OUR HOME. 



First of all, our house is a small-windowed, low-roofed cottage, such as were 

 built forty years ago. The walls are papered with a neat, light paper. There 

 are two south and one east window, the sills of wliich are broad shelves filled 

 with pots of geraniums, fuchsias and other plants. Near one is a flower stand, 

 also filled with plants, among which are ivies and Madeira vines trained over a 

 wall and picture. There are three hanging vases, with tradescantia viridis in 

 one, tradescantia zehrina in another, and German Ivy, or Sinaria, in the third, 

 all hanging from brackets fastened to the wall at suitable points, with some of 

 their luxuriant branches trained over pictures that are near them. I have 

 many bright flower chromos framed in the jirimitive manner I have described, 

 and three or four other pictures, an engraving of American authors, a sunset 

 scene on the Hudson (oil painting), and two other fancy pictures. The flower 

 pictures are distributed around the room among the others, and around among 

 them, arranged in such a way as to have the effect of vines trained about the 

 pictures and over doors and windows, are delicate twigs- and slender branches 

 of the arbor vitse. This has been renewed twice during the winter, and you 

 may imagine that when the snowdrifts were piled all over the country, and 



" The wild wintry winds 

 Idly raved round our dwelling," 



we had the warmth and brightness of summer within. And so may all who 

 do not mind a little expense, and love to make home pleasant and attractive. 



In early summer I substitute asparagus for the evergreen. It is light and 

 graceful, and will keej) nicely for a week. Later, when the oaks mature their 

 foliage (before, the leaves wilt quickly and omit an unwholesome odor), I use 

 small twigs and branches of these trees. "When in autumn colors, they are un- 

 exceptionably handsome for decorative purposes. Such is my home living 

 room from year to year, and to my children I pray it may ever be a bright 

 and inspiring picture in their memory. 



Of parlor ornamentation I will only say, in mine, with hanging baskets, 

 brackets and pictures, the treasures of sea and land have helped to instruct my 

 children, and show to them how bountifully the heavenly Father has ministered 

 to the love of the beautiful. 



AUTUMN WORK. 



Allow me to urge you, as autumn approaches, to secure an ample quantity 

 of leaves as they assume their rich coloring. The sumac, with its scarlet, 

 crimson and gold; the maples, rich in their varied and gorgeous tintings, each 



