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OBODY can afford to have bare and ugly home 

 grounds. It is bad business. Of course, we do not 

 commonly take a business view of our homes; we 

 think of home in terms of sentiment. For we all 

 want the best there is in life, and we know we can 

 raise better children if they have beautiful sur- 

 roundings. But, granting that we all have the best sentiment 

 in the world, we cannot escape the business side. For in- 

 stance, we all have to consider the cost of making a lawn, of 

 fertilizing and planting. 



Now, there are two ways of handling these practical matters, 

 one of which gives little or no profit while the other gives very 

 great profits. Of course, you do not expect to make money out 

 of your home you expect to live in it, but the day will come 

 when you or your children will wish to sell part or all of your 

 property. And the buyer will look at everything you have done 

 from the cold, unsympathetic viewpoint of hard-cash value. 

 The man of wealth who indulges every personal whim, and 

 makes an eccentric place, will lose a lot of money. On the 

 other hand, if you leave your place bare, it may be absolutely 

 unsalable when the time of need comes, or you will get less than 

 it is worth. But, if your farm is sensibly planted, you can 

 get a bigger profit for the money you put into trees and shrubs 

 than for the same money spent on house, barn, or hogs. Then 

 old trees, that cost you nothing to plant, may bring you a 

 millionaire buyer. Ten dollars spent on shrubs and vines planted 

 against the foundation of your house may add $100 to its 

 cash selling value. This circular tells of people who have 

 found buyers, or actually made 100 to 1,000 per cent profit, 



from ornamental planting. Such profits sound like a "get- 

 rich-quick scheme," but that they are made is true. And the 

 reason for these enormous profits is that what you plant on 

 your lawn is seen by everybody. It may be much more impor- 

 tant to spend $100 on a bathroom; but, for one person who 

 sees the $100 you spend on plumbing or interior decoration, 

 there are thousands of passers-by who see the $10 spent in 

 your front yard. If you spend that $10 in the ordinary way 

 of "beautifying the farm," you will get back not one single 

 cent. If you spend it in the "Illinois way," you cannot help 

 increasing the cash value or salability of your farm, because 

 permanent trees are worth, for beauty alone, $i a square inch 

 in cross-section of their trunk three feet above the ground, 

 and they increase in value every year. 



THE COMMON WAY OF PLANTING IS 

 UNPROFITABLE 



The common way of planting is to scatter flower-beds 

 over a lawn. (See Fig. 2.) It aims to make the biggest show 

 for the money and get immediate results. That is why begin- 

 ners make fancy beds of complicated design and fill them with 

 coleus and cannas, which give great masses of striking color 

 for three months or more. But next winter those beds are 

 vacant and ugly, and next spring the same work must be 

 done, and every year there is a fresh outlay of money for the 

 same thing. Soon the constant repetition of the work gets 

 monotonous, and next we realize that the effect is gaudy; 

 for our standards are constantly rising, and what we admired 



}f Planting a Lawn 



he "Illinois Way" of Planting a Lawn 



This sort of thing intoxicates beginners the world over. The plants are scattered, so Leaving the center open and grouping the shrubs at the sides, so as to frame a picture 



to make the biggest show. Ninety per cent are foreign or artificial varieties, e.g., cut- of the home. The trees are not trimmed up like street trees, but all the lower branches are 

 ved, weeping, and variegated shrubs, or tender foliage plants and double flowers, such preserved, and bushes connect lawn and trees. Ninety per cent are hardy trees and shrubs 



as to mak 

 leav 



, , , , 



as cannas, coleus, and the double hydrangea. Why not move such plants to the back yard 

 or garden? In the front yard they tend to make all the world look alike. 



. , 



preserved, and bushes connect lawn and trees. Ninety per cent are hardy-trees and shrubs 

 native to Illinois. Let Illinois look different from all the rest of the world! (Magnus place, 



. 

 Winnetka, same as cover. House by Spencer, grounds by Jensen.) 



