TilE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



431 



hogs ; raw to work -horses at auy time ; steamed ia a meal in 

 the evening, best iu the spring months ; steamed and mixed 

 with meals, and given to poultry in troughs. Tiie application 



of roots in the raw condition may be the most valuable, avoid- 

 ing the expense of preparation, and producing a result at the 

 least cost. J. D. 



ADORNING AND BEAUTIFYING FARMERS' HOMES. 



The Genesee Farmer says : Our offer of a prize 

 for the best essay in answer to the question, 

 " Should Farmers adorn and beautify their Homes 

 and Farms before they become wealthy ? and if so, 

 how may it be done in the easiest manner ?" has 

 called out answers from a great number of esteemed 

 correspondents, and we believe a few extracts 

 from some of them will prove interesting to our 

 readers : — 



Martin S. Gregg, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, 

 writes that he is in favour of adorning the house 

 before the farmer becomes wealthy. He says : — 



" I am poor, and any one can do as I have done. 

 I have taken from our native forests some fine 

 trees and flowers, which cost me nothing but a 

 little labour. To these I added a few imported 

 trees and flowers. And now my farm will command 

 twice as much money as it ivoulJ without these 

 adornments.^' 



"To neglect home attractions, to forego internal 

 conveniences, and those external adornments which 

 a just appreciation of the beautiful would dictate, 

 until our pockets are lined with superfluous wealth, 

 and many years and cares are weighing heavily 

 upon us, is like refusing to eat until our granary 

 and larder are overflowing with husbanded stores, 

 and our wasted frames admonish us of our impru- 

 dence. 



" With the many, a reasonable degree of com- 

 fort is accounted as everything, and beauty nothing. 

 Such persons have no idea of the potency of in- 

 fluences. The tastes and characters of our children, 

 and the subsequent happiness consequent upon 

 the exercise of those tastes and the development 

 of those characters, are greatly dependent upon 

 the externals and internals of the home of their 

 childhood. 



" In the construction of their homes, farmers 

 are apt to act with too little premeditation and 

 thought. He who would built him a home, can 

 never invest money so well as to purchase and 

 study some reliable work on rural architecture. 

 He will there learn that even a cheap house can be 

 so constructed as to combine internal convenience 

 of arrangement with exterior beauty and attractive- 

 ness. He who would adorn his grounds and 

 beautify his home, should read some work on land- 

 scape gardening, and regularly and continuously 



some good agricultural and horticultural journals. 

 Thus he will place himself in communion with 

 persons of cultivated and refined tastes, and there- 

 by be enabled to act with more judgment, and with 

 far more satisfactory results. Each year should 

 add new attractions to the surroundings of home, 

 develoj)ing new beauties : thus our children will 

 grow up with a strong attachment to the homes of 

 their childhood. 



" This work of beautifying our homes is easiest 

 done, where the work commences with the com- 

 mencement of agricultural improvement, and is 

 conducted with good taste and an enlightened 

 judgment." — O. C. G., Frewsbury, N. Y. 



" If the farmer has sons and daughters, and 

 wishes them to grow up farmers and farmers' 

 wives — loving himself, their own old homestead, 

 and a farmer's life — there must be something more 

 than mere out-door labour, and the freedom of 

 healthy exercise, to engage their hearts ; the farm 

 dwelling and all its appendages must be pleasant 

 and attractive — a place that they can ever remem- 

 ber and love, not only as the home of their youth, 

 but as a beautiful place. If this is done constantly 

 while they are growing up, he will not so often 

 have occasion to lament that his sons are dissatis- 

 fied with the occupation of their father, and seek 

 something more congenial." 



'* A good farm is worth beautifying, and should 

 appear as well as it really is ; but it is in very bad 

 taste to see the exterior of anything nicer than the 

 interior : it reminds one of the dandy parading 

 Broadway. Let the house be a rural home, ap- 

 propriate to its position, surrounded with shade 

 trees, for the two-fold purpose of greatly adding 

 to the comfort of its occupants and the beauty of 

 the place. Spare for a grove on the highway 

 those trees most sound and thrifty, and one here 

 and there over the pasture lands; it will give the 

 farm a more natural appearance, and it will not 

 present so barren an aspect ; and the panting ox 

 and sheep, reclining beneath its refreshing shade, 

 will return a look of gratitude. Fences should be 

 constructed with a view first to permanency, and 

 their adaptedness to the wants of the field, and then 

 built neatly as well as substantially — strait as pos- 

 sible, every board of its proper size and in its 

 proper place— the posts perpendicular, and not one 



