442 Reading-Course for Farmers' Wives. 



a flower-garden should hardly be considered as a duty. To afford most 

 enjoyment it must not be perfunctory. Its main object is aesthetic, not 

 useful, only as the beautiful has a use. 



To make a garden only because other people have one is of little 

 merit. The reason for having a garden is because one cannot get along 

 without things growing and budding and blossoming. If one would 

 make the flower-garden a valuable accessory to the home, it may be 

 necessary to begin with one's inward feelings. One person beUeves in 

 the personality of books and loves even to handle them. For him a 

 library is necessary. Another finds great happiness in music, and a 

 piano is desired. There are still others for whom the pet animal has 

 greatest fascination, and there are those for whom plants will readily 

 bloom and thrive. Human interest may be aroused by means of flowers 

 and plants ; and lack of time, lack of knowledge, or lack of space does not 

 prove a serious barrier to the window-garden or the garden out-of-doors. 



The suggestion was once made in the Farmers' Wives' Reading- 

 Course that a flower at each place at the breakfast table was a happ> 

 beginning of the day. A reply came from a woman already overcome 

 with household duties: " Do you realize what it means in the busy life 

 of the farmer's wife to go out every morning to pick fresh flowers, 

 saying nothing of the time is requires to cultivate them? " If this were 

 a necessary article of food, it might be well to urge one to be faithful 

 in performance, but unless she enjoys picking the flowers with the morn- 

 ing dew still on them and has pride in the decoration it gives to the 

 dining-table and in the pleasure it affords others, it is a wearisome task. 



One's own flower-garden develops a happy sense of ownership that is 

 recognized by children as well as by adults. It is gratifying to see h 

 develop into a blaze of beauty as if the result of one's own workmanship. 

 The child never gets away from this influence. 



It is not necessary to have a showy'garden in the front yard. Flowers 

 are best in quiet and modest surroundings. They suggest repose. They 

 are for comfort, much as are one's books or close friends. They add 

 cheerfulness to that part of the home or grounds where one stays the 

 most. They are useful also to hide the woodshed, the clothes-yard and 

 the chicken-coop. 



One has only to mention the names of certain flowers to set going a 

 whole train of pleasant recollections and to cause one to want to start a 

 garden at once. The garden of " herbs " should not be neglected. The 

 odors almost seem present with us even on a March day, — sage, sweet 

 marjoram, mint, tansy, thyme, sweet basil, lavender, old-man, catnip, dill, 

 fennel, caraway, camomile and rosemary. 



