316 Our Farming. 



with them in New York Tribune, some years ago. At once I said 

 that is neat and perfect, and I will have them in use soon. My 

 first step up was to saw an oil barrel in two and use the two 

 halves to prevent any soakage of filth into the earth, and muck 

 was kept in a barrel in one corner. It was not handy. The tubs 

 were hard to empty. A tight box to be drawn out by a horse 

 would be better, but a metal receptacle is perfect, absorbing no 

 filth. I know thousands will think this too much bother, but it 

 is a perfectly safe' clean, odorless, civilized way, with which we 

 are entirely satisfied. This closet is for the ladies, of course. In 

 the picture giving the inside view of covered barnyard you see 

 the closet for the men, built on the same plan, only with one pail. 

 Being under the yard roof, no roof was needed on the closet, so 

 cost was little. We find it a luxury to have a place for everything, 

 and everything in its place. 



Now let us talk a little about the lawn. In order to get ours 

 well graded, we dug it all up and cultivated it all summer, seeding 

 in the fall heavily with blue grass and a little timothy. The tim- 

 othy made a sod we could mow early the next spring, and grad- 

 ually died out as the blue grass came in. It was several years 

 before we got a perfect sod. After the sod was established, we 

 cut out the drives and paths, drawing the sods away and filling 

 up with gravel. The soil around the house, coming out of cellar, 

 not being the best, we dug out some beds for flowers and shrubs 

 a foot or two deep, and drew in choice soil from clover field, from 

 some low place where it was over rich. A good deal of time was 

 spent grading and fixing our grounds, small though they are. 

 The shrubs, plants, etc., bought, came direct from a large, reli- 

 able nursery. 



Although a beautiful green lawn is the foundation, it needs 

 flowers, trees and shrubs, too, although not too many. The 

 most showy flower bed on our grounds this season is some 

 thirty feet long, and narrow, in a place where that shape would 

 look best, and with an evergreen background. The bed is 

 filled with a beautiful assortment of hardy perennial phloxes. 

 They were set some fifteen inches apart each way. The plants 

 cost about eight cents each, and were put out in the spring 

 early. They were given rich soil, and surface was kept con- 

 stantly stirred with a pronged hoe about an inch deep. They 

 live right along from year to year, but need taking up and 

 dividing after the second year. Ours are now two to four feet 

 high, and a mass of the most brilliant bloom and gorgeous 

 colors. The flowers last for a long time. Great improvement 

 has been made in varieties of late. 



We have also a bed of herbaceous peonies, of different 

 colors, no two like, that is very showy in its season, although the 

 flowers do not last long. These also live year after year. Among 

 the flowering and variegated shrubs the rhododendron stands at the 



