SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 497 



Viollet Le Due said: " I am convinced that the taste of this generation can 

 be made perfection by making it reason." If you can lead people to reason 

 intelligently about their homes, rid them of the " traditions of the elders," 

 and induce them to leave the work of mere copyists, you can place them in a 

 position to get a great deal of satisfaction out of life as a result of their own 

 endeavors. 



Seeing Out. — Prof. L. H. Bailey thrusts this piece of good sense into one 

 of his lectures : 



Not long since I visited a worthy farmer who desired my advice in regard to 

 the improvement of his front yard. I looked it over, and advised him to re- 

 move a great Norway spruce, a balsam fir, an apple tree, a large chestnut, 

 three smaller Norvvays, a large red cedar, a fringe tree, and several bushes, 

 lie discussed the trees seriatim. The great spruce he could never spare, be- 

 cause it was the first one set in the township; ditto with the fir; the apple 

 tree bore good fruit ; the horse-chestnut was the largest specimen in the 

 neighborhood; the three smaller Norways were fhrifty and attractive; the red 

 cedar had been " backed in" in an early clay from the woods at a great ex- 

 pense of muscle; the fringe tree cost him a dollar, and the bushes were all 

 attractive when in flower ; therefore he could spare none of them. I could not 

 improve his yard; and when he must look at the evening sky to note signs of 

 to-morrow's weather, and when his wife must know who it is that is passing 

 along the highway, they must either go some rods away from the house or 

 scrooch under the trees. An attractive house on a distant hill is entirely hid- 

 den ; in fact, there is no great outside world from the windows of that resi- 

 dence. 



This is all rad cally wrong. The landscape gardener is often upbraided for 

 his so-called impractical notions, his "fine theories of beauty," but woe to 

 the gardener if he ever entertains notions so much at variance with laws of 

 happiness and health, as does he who hibernates in a prison of tangled trees. 

 No, rather have an open field with the fresh verdure of the greensward and the 

 cri&p play of winds, and an overabundance of sunlight, than a house hidden in 

 gloomy foliage. But let us have the golden mean. Keep the front of the 

 house open to the world, and never allow a tree to hide a desirable view. Last 

 spring I moved into a new house. From the front porch I could see nothing 

 but an ordinary grove, although but a few rods beyond it were fine college 

 buildings, with their constant play of life and frolic. I cut many trees from' 

 that grove, none to its detriment either, and now, as I sit at my dinner table, 

 I can see through the grove to an attractive view beyond. This vista may be 

 " impractical," as the common expression goes, but I am confident that I can 

 relish my meal better than I could if I were shut up to my own dining-room 

 and the bit of gravel path which lies in front of my window. 



Location of Buildings. — Major Hugh T. Brooks, of Pearl Creek, New 

 York, never says anything without making a point, and the following is 

 very characteristic of him : 



It costs a good deal, as many have found out, to move buildings badly 

 placed; it costs a good deal more not to move them. A very great deal de- 

 pends on proper location — much more than most people seem to be aware 

 of; reminders are therefore needed. Sanitary considerations are of first 



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