Summer Meeting. 81 



^HE ORNAMENTATION OF RURAL SCHOOLS AND RURAL 



HOMES. 



Bv J. C. Whitten, Columbia, Mo. 



The desirability of more general ornamental planting about our rural 

 bui^lings needs hardly to be further advocated. So much has been said 

 and written upon this subject in recent years that the usual bareness about 

 the Itome and school grounds in the country must have, ere this, claimed 

 the attention of every thoughtful person. That such plantings would 

 have ^reat value is, I think, admitted by all. Anything which adds to 

 the attiactiveness of the home makes it a better place in which to rear the 

 childreti who must grow up there. The grateful shade of trees, the 

 beauty of shrubs, vines and flowers adds much to the attractiveness of a 

 place and tends to elevate the taste, inspire the minds, inculcate a love of 

 home amoig our people. Considered even from a standpoint of dollars 

 and cents these plantings add greatly to the money value of a place. 

 The snug, cosy well-planted home is worth more than the neglected one. 

 I have knowa a prominent buyer of apples to desire to drive straight by 

 an orchard wKere the home was going to neglect and where a snarling 

 dog yelped at tlie gate, despite the fact that the fruit crop there was a 

 good one. The same buyer was attracted by a well-planted home, and 

 gladly paid the liighest price for the apples grown there. The fruit 

 looked redder and better there and his feelings were more liberal toward 

 the owner. In every way a judicious amount of care of the home 

 grounds pays. 



If it pays to ornament the home grounds, it is even wiser yet to 

 plant about the schools, where so much more of our time is spent, where 

 oiw education is secured and where our f^haracter is so largely molded. 

 The same principles that apply to the ornainentation of the home, apply 

 likewise to the improvement of the school grounds. For this reason if 

 I speak a word in regard to school plantings the same directions may 

 serA'e him who wishes to do a little gardening about his home. 



The reason that most school grounds are bare is not due to the fact 

 that people do not like pretty plantings, but rather because most of us 



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