678 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



country home where without and within conditions should be congenial 

 with nothing to mar or disturb the domestic happiness, and where the 

 growing mind of childhood can absorb from its surroundings the very 

 best impressions for a pure and noble character. 



City people are heavily taxed and will go a great way to enjoy park 

 conditions. They seek for healthful recreation, for physical as well as 

 mental invigoration and benefit, but the farmer with ample opportunity, 

 better facilities, and very little sacrifice, ridicules the idea of a lawn be- 

 cause "it don't pay" or "I haint got no time." 



As far as finding time is concerned, you will find that the farmers 

 who have well kept places are the busiest of their class, and if they have 

 any time to fool away they certainly could not do it more profitably than 

 by putting their lawn in trim. There are other and disastrous ways of 

 fooling away time. I have been repeatedly asked if it paid to have so 

 large a place with trees and shrubs, if potatoes or corn might not have 

 been a better investment. 



The man who calculates the value of an ornamental garden merely 

 by what it yields in dollars and cents, is to be pitied rather than criticised; 

 pitied because he is poor amidst wealth; because he is calloused and dead 

 to nature's grandest creation unfolded in beautiful flowers, shrubs and 

 trees. 



To me, my large garden has been and is yet a vast field for study and 

 observation. It is a natural laboratory where I toil with increasing pleas- 

 ure. Here I have a fountain yielding joys and pleasures so keen as not to 

 be measured with sordid dollars and cents. I doubt whether those of you 

 who seek pleasures in other avenues of life, are finding them better, 

 cheaper or healthier than I am having them at my very door, saying 

 nothing of the money value that trees add to a farm. 



My garden with its attractive groups and retreats, the results of 

 many years' care and nursing, is for me a place of refuge when world- 

 weary and heartisck to get recreation, get strength and inspiration to 

 meet the arduous tasks which fall to the lot of the average farmer. In 

 short it is my heaven on earth. 



Byron says: "The cumbersome pomp of Saxon pride, accords not with 

 a free born soul, that loves the mountains craggy sides, and seeks the rocks 

 where billows roll." So would I say, I care not for commercial strife, for 

 the pursuit of the almighty dollar. I care not for the noise, the din and 

 contaminations of city life; I care not for the shams and hypocracies of 

 so-called society, or the scramble for social or political distinctions. With 

 disgust and loathing I turn from these to undefiled nature, seek rapture in 

 ber idyllic abodes, commune with the silent muses, be at peace with myself 

 and the world at large. Yes. it has paid me well and will pay everyone 

 to have nice surroundings. You will receive pleasure that you may now 

 be unconscious of. You will be all the more proud of your home if it is 

 beautiful, and without wishing to pose as an example, I do believe that a 

 man is more respected, will be in better standing with his family and the 

 community for showing high ideals and appreciation of the beautiful. He 

 will be a better patriot to his country for he will defend that home with 



