HOMESTEAD LANDSCAPES. 157 



with the mind's eye ; trace them on paper, to be filed with the 

 ground plans, as notes of ideas for future development. 



Do not forget to include, in your scheme of improvement, re- 

 moval of the lilac and sweetbrier bushes from before the windows. 

 Let these and similar shrubs be placed at a respectful distance 

 from the house, and let vines be planted in their place ; which, in 

 a few years' time, will cover the unpretending structure with a 

 mantle of living green, and will thereby add greatly to its health- 

 fuluess as well as beauty. 



Should the house be of more recent construction, a bay window 

 may be thought of in the place of the flat one, which now gives 

 light to the living room ; or a landscape window, should that room 

 be one of ample proportions. Consider the planting of vines here 

 also, for they are becoming to all classes of dwellings, from the 

 humblest cottage to the most elegant mansion. No feature in the 

 landscape gives so much interest as well placed vines ; the wonder 

 is that they are so little used. 



Perhaps when you look at your own dwelling, neither of these 

 distinctive types meets your vision, but you behold a modern 

 American dwelling, with its shams and false pretences, painted 

 with as much gorgeousness as a Chinese lantern, replete with all 

 the so-called modern conveniences of furnaces, hot and cold 

 water, shoddy plumbing and sewer gas. If so, go no further in 

 your plans for landscape ornament, but devote j-ourself in earnest 

 to the sanitary problem. Too many such houses generate and 

 harbor the germs of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and kindred diseases. 

 It will not be prudent for you to proceed in other improvements 

 until fully assured on this point ; for the modern American house — 

 the blending of the styles of Queen Anne and Robinson Crusoe, 

 Gothic church and Virginia cabin — Ionic, cubic, and diabolic, is 

 more often a death trap than a protecting home. 



A house must be viewed from many different standpoints — as a 

 connoisseur of pictures views a work of art from all directions. 

 Especial regard should be had to its site and immediate surround- 

 ings ; for a house requires a suitable frame or setting as much as 

 a picture. This is especially true of a dwelling placed upon a hill ; 

 where, without some effective surroundings, it is likely to look bare 

 and cheerless. This appearance, however, can be relieved by 

 planting trees in such positions as, in time, to shut it in somewhat, 

 yet not so close as to overshadow it. It needs a background of 



