136 HEDGES., WINDBREAKS., SHELTERS, ETC. 



house must rather say, not, what will the house cost, 

 but what will the homestead cost ; and estimate alto- 

 gether the cost of the planting of live trees as well 

 as the sawing and hammering together of dead ones. 

 If you spend less on dust-holding carpets and cur- 

 tains, on bric-a-brac furnishings, and more on beau- 

 tiful grounds you will live longer and more happily. 

 If a real home grows rather than happens, there will 

 always be present a sense of rest and repose. 

 Hedges, windbreaks, coverts, shelters, suggest pro- 

 tection and comfort; if not they should never exist. 

 The 'difficulty with many so-called homes is that 

 everything is on edge all the while. You feel the 

 constant presence of shears, and you hear the ever- 

 lasting and detestable lawn mower the one imple- 

 ment that never points to rest and to peace, but to 

 clatter and toil. I smell sweat whenever I see one. 

 Some housewives use a broom also in such a manner 

 that it is a twin horror. You know that they watch 

 your departing steps with the whisk of a broom, to 

 send the dirt after you. 



A man who builds a house without a room in it 

 except for work and sleep has made exactly the same 

 blunder as he who plants his acres for nothing but 

 work and food. It is an old law that man cannot 

 live by bread alone, whatever a four-legged animal 

 may do. A right sort of home should, from its 

 inception, include as an object the beautiful as well 

 as the useful, expecting the two, in combination, to 

 create the good. It is hardly necessary to add that 

 with this idea of home operative, there is no room 

 for mere display. Home wraps one around as 

 clothes wrap a sensible person. They are put on 



