496 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The Best Room. — In " My Farm of Edge wood," the author scores a good 

 point for the living room in the following well chosen method : 



There are absurd ideas afloat in regard to the front and the back side of a 

 house, which affect village morals and manners in a most base and unmeaning 

 way. In half the country towns and by half the farmers, it is considered 

 necessary to retain a pretending front side upon some dusty street or highway, 

 with tightly closed blinds and bolted door ; with parlors only ventured upon in 

 an uneasy way from month to month to consult some gilt-edged dictionary or 

 relics that lay in state like a king's coffin. The occupant, meantime, will be 

 living in some back corner — slipping in and out at back doors, never at ease, 

 save in his most uninviting room, and as much a stranger to the blinded parlor 

 which very likely engrosses the best half of his house, as his visitor, the parson. 

 All this is as arrant a sham and affectation as the worst ones in our cities. 



It is true that every man will wish to set aside a certain portion of his house 

 for the offices of hospitality. But the easy and familiar hospitalities of a 

 country village or of the farmer do not call for any exceptional stateliness ; 

 the farmer invites his best friends to his habitual living room; let him see to it 

 then, that his living room be the sunniest and most cheerful in the house. 



So his friends come to love it, and he and his children to love it and to 

 cherish it, so it shall be the rallying point of the household affections through 

 all time. No sea so distant but the memory of the cheery, sunlit home-room 

 with its pictures on the wall, and its flame upon the hearth, shall haunt the 

 voyager's thought, and the flame upon the hearth and the sun-lit window, will 

 pave a white path over the intervening waters, where tenderest fancies, like 

 angels, shall come and go. 



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There is a deeper philosophy in this than may at first sight appear. Who 

 shall tell us how many a breakdown of a wayward son is traceable to the cheer- 

 less aspect of his own home and fireside? 



Homoculture. — 0. C. Simonds, landscape architect, says: We see in many 

 papers designs of houses, usually by architects of ordinary ability, with short 

 descriptions and estimated cost given. I think it would be a better plan to 

 teach the principle of design and the uses to which a house and its surround- 

 ings should be put in order to secure the greatest amount of comfort. The 

 question, is such or such a feature going to be fashionable, is frequently asked. 

 Will it increase the comfort or beauty of the house, should be asked instead. 

 If you could teach people to be honest in their houses and grounds, you would 

 do a wonderful amount of good. After they have learned this lesson, they 

 would not make paper look like wood, or wood like stone. I think they would 

 not make a serpentine A^alk to the house. After you have taught how to be 

 %onest, you could teach how to take comfort. This lesson would interfere 

 somewhat with the parlors of our fathers — perhaps do away with them 

 altogether. It would teach people to put the' kitchen in the coolest part of 

 the house, the dining-room where it will get the morning sunlight, the living 

 rooms and bed-rooms where they would receive plenty of sunshine, and would 

 arrange rooms so as to save steps. It would teach people to plant evergreens 

 for a protection from cold winds, even though evergreens were not fashionable. 

 After you have taugh people to be comfortable, you can teach them how to 

 make their homes beautiful. 



