INTRODUCTION. 



"The landscape, forever consoling and kind, 

 Pours her wine and her oil on the smarts of the mind." 



LOWELL. 



THE aim of this work is to aid persons of moderate 

 income, who know little of the arts of decorative garden- 

 ing, to beautify their homes ; to suggest and illustrate 

 the simple means with which beautiful home-surround- 

 ings may be realized on small grounds, and with little cost ; and 

 thus to assist in giving an intelligent direction to the desires, and 

 a satisfactory result for the labors of those who are engaged in 

 embellishing homes, as well as those whose imaginations are warm 

 with the hopes of homes that are yet to be. 



It is more than twenty years since the poetical life and pen of 



