78 FAULTS TO AVOID, 



the consideration of its influences on the health of the occupants 

 at all unimportant ; for where sun and wind cannot get free play, 

 a moist and stagnant air, injurious to all animal life, is necessarily 

 occasioned. **** **** 



" In the immediate neighborhood of the house, moreover, it is 

 particularly desirable that trees and large shrubs should not 

 abound. Independently of darkening the windows, they communi- 

 cate great dampness to the walls, and prevent that action of the wind 

 upon the building which alone can keep it dry, comfortable, and 

 consequently healthy. 



" Another mode in which the effect of a garden may be marred 

 by too much being aimed at, is in the formation of numerous flower 

 beds, or groups of mixed shrubs and flowers on the lawn. This is 

 a very common failing, and one which greatly disfigures a place ; 

 especially as, when intended only for flowers, such beds usually 

 remain vacant and naked for several months in the year." 



The necessity of avoiding to shade a house with trees, or 

 shrubs against its walls, is doubtless much greater in Great Britain 

 than in our much dryer and hotter climate ; still, it is certain that 

 the suggestions of the author just quoted are quite too much dis- 

 regarded in this country; so much so, that some of our highest 

 medical authorities, of late, attribute much of the consumption so 

 fatal in New England families, to the want of sun, the damp air, 

 and the tree and shrub-embowered and shutter-closed houses pe- 

 culiar to its villages and farms. 



A common error in fitting up a home is the idea, apparently 

 acted upon by the owner, that his own place " is all the world to 

 him." Now, a glimpse of a near or distant mountain, river, pond, 

 or lake ; of a single beautiful tree, or a church spire, or a neigh- 

 bor's pretty house and lawn, or a distant field-chequered farm, are 

 all our own if we choose to make them so. As H. W. Beecher 

 pithily puts it : " Men's eyes make finer pictures, when they know 

 how to use them, than anybody's hands can." To shut one's place 

 out of view of one or all of these things, by planting it full of lit- 

 tle trees and little bushes, to be admired principally because they 

 are " my " little trees and bushes, is surely a sad weakness ; yet 

 how many homes are seen, commanding pictures of great interest 



