SUMMER MEETING. 95 



Visitors to the World's Fair were impressed by a picture in the 

 «,rt gallery. It was the " Breaking of Home Ties." The picture has a 

 soul, and hundreds have stood before it with moistened eyes. Even 

 the dog and cat oh the canvas showed a downcast expression as father 

 and mother, brothers and sisters, bade good-bye to the young man 

 about to leave them for the field of his life-work. Is it not worth the 

 while that the boys and girls who go out from us shall carry with them 

 a mental picture of home and its surroundings that shall come back in 

 later years as a pleasant memory "? The picture need not be large or 

 grand. The.one to which I have referred in the gallery was smaller 

 and less assuming than many others. So the humble cottage, with its 

 cool shade, its green trees, its flowers and clambering vines, may be 

 the picture with a soul, dearer and more enduring than that of the city 

 mansion, however grand. 



It is true, times are hard — with some they always are — but I be- 

 lieve there are few among us who cannot, as the spring approaches, 

 plan some improvement in the surroundings of home, which will come 

 within our reach. The monuments placed on our graves will grow dim 

 and crumble as the years go by, but the trees we plant will grow when 

 we have returned to dust, and their beauty and their shade will refresh 

 and make glad those who shall live after us. 



All this may be done without neglect of the farm, and will furnish 

 relaxation rather than an increased burden of toil. This, with me, is 

 no mere theory or flight of fancy. My earlier life was spent on a farm, 

 which at first was but a blank space on a treeless prairie, with only 

 the labors of father and sons to make it otherwise, but it was done. 



Yet the cheerless homes of which I have spoken are not alto- 

 gether those of the poor. Not a few of our well-to-do farmers live in 

 the midst of desolation indescribable and inexcusable. For them na- 

 ture's choicest products from every land have been gathered in nurse- 

 ries and gardens within their reach, and offered at a trifling cost. Why 

 are they not obtained 1 " I do not care for such things, they don't 

 pay," is the answer. These people do not understand their own capa- 

 cities ; they may care and enjoy. Men and women are not so dead to 

 the beauties of nature as they may imagine. Care and enjoyment 

 grow with what we plant, and we are surprised to find ourselves inter- 

 ested in what had seemed most uninstructive. Then again it does 

 pay. No equal investment of time and money adds a greater percent- 

 age to the salable value of the farm than its proper embellishment by 

 means of ornamental planting, to say nothing of the increased comfort 

 and satisfaction enjoyed during all the years of occupancy. 



