304 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



City conveniences for the country home might be more com- 

 mon than now. The hot-air furnace, the hot and cold water in 

 pipes from a tank in the attic and a force pump in the kitchen, 

 supplied for at least eight months of the year by the windmill 

 and kitchen fire, might be secured by constant effort by more 

 women of the country if they were seen to be as essential as the 

 farmer's labor-saving implements. 



The country home may be not only as convenient but in these 

 days of manifold books and printed articles upon house furnish- 

 ings, artistic decorations and good furniture and arrangement, 

 as attractive and artistic as any city home. 



A woman is seriously at fault if her home is not made beauti- 

 ful by harmonious coloring, by restful spaces whence all trashy 

 ornaments have been removed ; by simple, genuine, well-made 

 furniture ; by that greatest charm, daintiness — is at fault if she 

 does not keep her porch, veranda and door-yard free from out of 

 place articles, if her general surroundings are not as tidy and 

 beautiful as her city cousins'. She has in her groves and streams, 

 her "down dropping branches" and her surroundings, accessories 

 which the city cousin misses. 



Another great pleasure is more common in the country than 

 in the city; it is the pleasure of owning one's own home. "If I 

 had known, before buying this house," said a new owner to me 

 recently, "how great the difference in the enjoyment of one's own 

 house and of a rented one, nothing could have induced me to 

 wait so long before purchasing. I would rather live in a tiny 

 cottage of my own than in the finest rented house in the city." 

 The pleasures of ownership are not slight. 



The country woman, however, in testing the life worth liv- 

 ing, is most inclined to envy for her children the mental and so- 

 cial advantages which the city offers. Ah, yes, those children ! 

 What does not the unselfish mother desire for them in school 

 privileges! The country school is doubtless lacking in equip- 

 ment and in experienced teachers, but observation shows that 

 in the smaller number of pupils, in the teacher's personal influ- 

 ence and interest, in the greater concentration upon the essen- 

 tials of education, in the invigorating tone, and in the purer mor- 

 al as well as physical atmosphere there are great compensations. 

 Results do not always balance in favor of the city schools. "The 

 Yankee schoolmaster was a grand success," said a noted educator 

 last week, "because he taught a few things and taught them 

 well." A western "schoolma'am" often merits the same praise. 

 Only a venturesome mother would exchange the good things of 



