no 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



steal cherries away from home. They will 

 hunt for green apples. 



SIDEWALKS. 



If it is sidewalks you most need, create 

 such a strong public sentiment in their favor 

 that those reticent old taxpayers who always 

 protest against everything but a reduction 

 of taxes will not dare fight against the im- 

 provement. But do not think when you 

 have laid new sidewalks and planted your 

 trees that your work is finished. It is but 

 begun. 



BACK YARDS. 



What is the condition of your back yard 

 and alley ? Is the latter an impassable mire 

 in winter and a weedy lane in summer, or is 

 it a well-graded, rolled and drained passage 

 way? Is your back yard green with grass 

 and gay with flowers, making it a beautiful 

 and wholesome place in which your children 

 may play? Or, is it a death-trap, adorned 

 with a fragrant swill barrel, heaps of ashes 

 and garbage, piles of old boards, an untidy 

 fence, while the bare ground is soaked with 

 greasy dishwater, making it a place abhor- 

 rent to your children as a playground, and 

 as unsafe from a sanitary point of view as a 

 sewer ? If you have such a back yard can 

 wonder why Johnny and Willie prefer to 

 play in the street instead of the yard ? I 

 think their preference for the street shows 

 proper instinct and good judgment. 



Does your grocer and fruiterer expose the 

 foods he expects you to eat to the dusty con- 

 tagion of the street? If so, you should 

 teach him that you never offer such con- 

 taminated foods to your family. If an r- 

 ganization of influential housekeepers speaks 

 clearly upon this point, glass-covered boxes 

 will be quickly provided that will show the 

 goods quite as well. 



FOOD SUPPLY. 

 How about your dairy supply? In a cer- 



tain town a shocking infant mortality was 

 traced to the milk. A body of indignant 

 women making a protest against an incom- 

 petent dairy inspector was told by the poli- 

 tician, of whom the inspector was a protege, 

 that they were going outside their sphere 

 when meddling in politics. He was quickly 

 answered that " women's sphere was not 

 only outside the home but inside the baby." 

 A weekly or fortnightly visit by a commit- 

 tee from an improvement association would 

 have a deal to do with wholesome dairy 

 premises. No educated woman of this age 

 dares to be indifferent as to the source of the 

 food with which she supplies her family. 

 Beauty and health are synonymous terms — 

 you cannot have one without the other. 



THE VILLAGE SCHOOL. 



This little temple of learning is a model 

 one for a village school. It is fifty feet by 

 sixty in size. The two rooms on one side 

 and the large one on the other have sliding 

 partitions which permit them to be thrown 

 into one large hall for lecture or concert. 

 There are cases full of books, pictures ot 

 great men, and a few good water colors on 

 the wall. In the yard are trees, flower beds 

 and swings. It is a pity that spring bloom- 

 ing shrubbery and bulbs are not more gen- 

 erally planted about school houses. Lilacs, 

 snowballs, syringas, deutzias, weigelias, etc., 

 if planted along the wall will take but little 

 space, serve as a background for the flower 

 beds, and fill the school room with fra- 

 grance. On Arbor Day why always plant 

 forest trees? Why not plant a cherry tree 

 that will ripen its fruit before school closes, 

 or an apple tree for fall ripening? Why 

 not nut trees? The training in honor and 

 self restrain required in waiting until fruit 

 or nuts are ripe is a finer lesson than can be 

 obtained from text books. Fruit and nut 

 trees give wider opportunities for nature 

 study, as well as for pretty school festivals 

 when the fruit and nuts are ripe. 



