ten] among the flowers 



vines, in order to add largely to your profits and to 

 your food; yet with these it is not impossible to 

 twine, without detriment to the fruit, a good num- 

 ber of climbing roses. Over stone piles let a bitter- 

 sweet grow; and if you have stone fences, it will 

 take very little labor to start in growth, beside them, 

 Virginia creepers. In this way, by simple devices, 

 the plainest homestead, where money income does 

 not exceed four hundred dollars a year, may be 

 glorified so as, first of all, to strike a visitor for its 

 beauty. At the same time your windbreaks — 

 which should never be forgotten — may be a com- 

 bination of the beautiful and the useful in the way 

 of crab-apple trees and mountain ash, while under 

 the shelter of a Tartarian honeysuckle hedge stands 

 half a dozen bee hives, which shall add a generous 

 quota to your comfort and to your profit. 



A country home can rarely indulge in costly 

 palms and similar decorations for the winter. It 

 is not necessary, because a few fresh bouquets of 

 Christmas roses, with clippings from your bar- 

 berries and your evergreen mahonia and your hem- 

 lock hedge will carry you well into midwinter. 

 Our best preparation for the white months is to dig 

 a few of our common May-flowering shrubs in 



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