10 



THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 



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25. This front yard is full of fancy trees and "quick-growers," scattered everywhere 

 to make the biggest show. 



your front porch or living-room window? They are rather hard 

 to move, and one in four may die, but try again. Two full- 

 grown hawthorns placed just outside your dining-room window 

 may add $100 to the salable value of your property, because 

 they will make your cornfields look twice as beautiful every 

 time you sit down to eat or rest. Be sure to get one with the 

 horizontal branching very pronounced, for some do not have it. 

 Avoid the English hawthorn, which is not adapted to 

 America, and the double red-flowered hawthorns, which are 

 gaudy and artificial compared with our western species, e.g., 

 the cockspur thorn (Cratasgus Crus-galli), the dotted haw (C. 

 punctata), the waxy thorn (C. pruinosa), Eggert's thorn (C. 

 coccmoides), and the parsley haw (C. apiifolia). The pear 

 thorn (C. tomentosa) sometimes has ascending branches, some- 

 times horizontal. Elsewhere in this circular are shown other 

 ways of repeating the prairie lines by means of shrubs and 

 flowers. 



FOUNDATION PLANTING 



No money that you can invest in planting will add so much 

 to the salability of your property as money spent to hide the 

 foundations of your house. People commonly plant flowers 

 against foundations, but flowers die down in winter and con- 

 sequently for half the year they cannot hide the foundations. 

 Even at their best, flowers are too weak to harmonize a house 



The Gaudy Style of Planting Hides the View from the House 



26. Here is the beautiful farm view that is completely hidden from the front porch 

 of Fig. 25. Have an open lawn toward the best views of your farm. 



with nature. It takes shrubs and permanent vines to do that. 

 And it is a big thing to accomplish, for a house without founda- 

 tion planting cannot possibly look at home amid its surround- 

 ings; it looks bare, ugly, uncomfortable. The shrubs must 

 not grow so high as to interfere with the windows, and they 

 must be compact, not sprawling or leggy; for this is the one 

 place on the farm where something like dress parade is desira- 

 ble. For practical suggestions, see Figs. 33 to 40. 



VINES TO MAKE YOUR PLACE LOOK 

 "DIFFERENT" 



The costliest and least satisfactory way to make your 

 home look "different" is to load the house with ornamentation. 

 The next poorest bargain is to scatter all over your lawn flashy 

 trees and shrubs, especially the cut-leaved, weeping, and 

 variegated kinds, for this will make your place look just like 

 every beginner's in every city the world over. The best way to 

 put personality and brilliancy and color into home grounds is 

 to have a different set of vines for every house. One place will 

 have Virginia creeper (Fig. 45), trumpet honeysuckle (Fig. 66), 

 and bittersweet (Fig. 47). The next place will have wild grape, 

 wild clematis, and Illinois rose. Both will be beautiful the year 

 round, and neither need cost a cent because you can dig the 

 plants from the open. While you are waiting for the permanent 



The Gaudy Style also Spoils the View toward the House. 



27. This yard is crowded with showy, costly, foreign plants. But the owner will never 28. This yard has an open center, bordered by groups of native trees. If the owner 



get his money back. For the trees hide the views to and from the house, and the lawn is ever wants to sell, his property will be more salable and the old trees will add considerably 



reduced to nothing. The gaudy style kills two views with one Colorado blue spruce. to its cash value. 



