160 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



together, nail them ou your slatted roof, and the work 

 is done. 



Really, this subject seems inexhaustible, and in fact it 

 is so, for there is none more important nor more suscepti- 

 ble of new ideas than this, of making a home that will sat- 

 isfy heart, mind, and body, and conduce to content, cheer- 

 fulness, and health. 



We have already wandered round considerably out of 

 doors; that is a way we have of doing in Florida, three 

 fourths of our time at least, and consequently we are not 

 quite prepared to go in yet. 



We have told somev\^hat of the wealth of beautiful flow- 

 ers and vines that may be gathered around the house, and 

 trained over the porches, but we have not yet mentioned 

 one of the most important and by far the most fragrant, 

 the evening jessamine. It is impossible for the Northern 

 mind to conceive, from its home experience, the strong, 

 thrifty growth of this much-prized plant in this genial 

 clime. The plant, as it is known there, is a frail, delicate 

 thing, of slow and precarious growth, almost impossible to 

 rear outside of conservatories, ''a pampered, aristocratic 

 darling," over whose wayward blossoming there is much 

 rejoicing and much boasting. We remember that, a few 

 years back, our whole family was summoned one evening, 

 in great haste, to the house of a neighbor to view the bloom 

 of the cherished evening jessamine, growing in a small 

 flower-pot, and to enjoy the delicious perfume it exhaled ; 

 we were made hapj^y by the presentation of a slip for root- 

 ing, that we might ''go and do likewise." But now, to 

 see this sdme fragrant, delicate night-bird among flowers 

 in Florida! 



Three years ago a tiny slip, not six inches tall, rooted in 

 a box, was set at the end of our ten-feet-wide piazza, for- 

 tunately, as the result proved, it was placed near the mid- 



