402 AGRICULTURE. 



" Pass along that road after five years working of this system in the 

 family, and what a change ! The thistles by the roadside enriched the 

 manure heap for a year or two, and then they died. These beautiful 

 maples and those graceful elms, that beautify the grounds around that 

 renovated home, were grubbed from the wide hedge-iows of five years 

 ago ; and so were those prolific rows of blackberries and raspberries, and 

 bush cranberries that show so richly in that neat garden, yielding 

 abundance of small fruit in their season. The unsightly out-houses are 

 screened from observation by dense masses of foliage ; and the many 

 climbing plants that now hang in graceful festoons from tree, and porch, 

 and column, once clambered along that same hedge-row. From the 

 meadow, from the wood, and from the gurgling stream, many a native 

 wild flower has been transplanted to a genial soil, beneath the home- 

 stead's sheltering wing, and yields a daily offering to the household gods, 

 by the hands of those fair priestesses who have now become their minis- 

 ters. By the planting of a few trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and 

 climbing plants, around that once bare and uninviting house, it has be- 

 come a tasteful residence, and its money value is more than doubled. A 

 cultivated taste displays itself in a thousand forms, and at every touch 

 of its hand gives beauty and value to property. A judicious taste, so 

 far from plunging its possessor into expense, makes money for him. The 

 land on which that hedge-raw grew five years ago, for instance, has 

 produced enough since to doubly pay the expense of grubbing it, and 

 of transferring its fruit briers to the garden, where they have not only 

 supplied the family with berries in their season, but have yielded many 

 a surplus quart, to purchase that long row of red and yellow Ant vverps, 

 and English gooseberries ; to say nothing of the scions bought with 

 their money, to form new heads for the trees in the old orchard. 



" These sons and daughters sigh no more for city life, but love with 

 intense affection every foot of ground they tread upon, every tree, and 

 every vine, and every shrub their hands have planted, or their taste has 

 trained. But stronger still do their affections cling to th&t family room, 

 where their minds first began to be developed, and to that centre-table 

 around which they still gather with the shades of evening, to drink in 

 knowledge, and wisdom, and understanding. 



" The stout farmer, who once looked upon his acres only as a labo- 

 ratory for transmuting labor into gold, now takes a widely different 

 view of his possessions. His eyes are opened to the beautiful in nature, 

 and he looks with reverence upon every giant remnant of the forest, that 

 by good luck escaped his murderous axe in former days. No leafy mon- 

 arch is now laid low without a stern necessity demands it ; but many a 



