12 



TJie Ccfuadiaii Horticultiirisi. 



A COTTAGE HOME. 



iv Rkv. Gko. Bi:li,, LL.D., of Queen's College, Kingston. 



THE desire for tlie acquisition 

 of property, mone)', or that 

 which money will procure, seems to 

 be universal in human nature. Add 

 to this man's social and domestic in- 

 stincts, and the result will be an 

 intense longing for a ho)nc, a place 

 which he and his famil}- may call 

 their own. With the possession of 

 even the most rudimentar\' elem -nts 

 of aesthetic taste, the wish will arise 

 to have a cosy cottage home, with 

 some surroundings of trees, shrubs 

 and flowers. Oh, hoAV the toilers in 

 cities dream of some such paradise in 

 the country, and long for the hope of 

 attaining it ! If a man has inherited 

 capital, or has early in life gained it, 

 the question of obtaining a home, 

 whether a cottage or a mansion, is 

 easily solved. But the great major- 

 ity are not in this case. In a new 

 coimtry like this the lot of most is to 

 toil for daily bread, by work of hand 

 or of brain, with no immediate ex- 

 pectation of accumulated means to 

 invest in real estate. With the ma- 

 jority the onl}- hope of a home of 

 one's own is in a future, many years 

 hence. When the amount which can 

 be saved from income is very small, 

 the prospect is discouraging, and 

 many give up trying to save what 

 seems an insignificant trifle. And so 

 many men pass their lives in wretch- 

 ed houses, hardly fit to be called 

 homes, paying to landlords what 

 should in a few years have procured 

 a comfortable home of their own. 

 The inspiring hope of a home some 

 day in the future is crushed out ; the 

 man becomes discouraged, and per- 

 haps falls into dissipation, and his 



noble wife sinks under lier toils and 

 dies of a broken heart. Surel)' any 

 efficient means of saving leakages 

 from income, and accumulating them 

 in view of a future home, should be 

 encouraged. Building societies do 

 not seem to have got down to the 

 stage of meeting the requirements of 

 the case ; and I would ask business 

 men who have the capacity for deal- 

 ing with such a problem, if it is not 

 possible to do more than has yet been 

 done to aid the industrious and eco- 

 nomical in this line. 



I would also earnestly urge on all 

 whose income is small to consider the 

 importance of saving trifling sums, 

 which are often needlessly spent, be- 

 cause being so small they are re- 

 garded as of no importance. One 

 very wide-spread practice may be 

 noted, respecting which a dialogue 

 once took place, somewhat as fol- 

 lows : — 



A. — " Mr. Blank has had a home- 

 stead burned up, worth $2,000." 



B. — "How unfortunate ! How did 

 the nre occur r"" 



A. — " He lighted it himself." 



B. — " Could he not put it out ?" 



A. — "He liked so much to see the 

 smoke curling up before him, that he 

 did not wish to have it put out." 



B. — "Ver}^ strange ; where was the 

 fire kindled ?" 



A. — "At the end of a cigar, the 

 other end being in his mouth ; and 

 at the end of twenty years the cost 

 of the supply of fuel amounted to 

 $2,000." 



" Nonsense !" some reader will e-x- 

 claim, " a man never could use $2,000 

 worth of cigars in twenty years," 



