22 
HOME GROUNDS 
garclenesque art may often save a proprietor enough, to pay for all 
that will be needed, by advising him what 7iot to attempt. 
But it is on bare, new grounds, that there will be most room for 
doubt of what to attempt. The man who must leave his home 
after an early breakfast to attend to his office or store business, 
and who only returns to dinner and tea, must not be beguiled into 
paying for the floral and arboricultural rarities that professional 
florists and tree-growers grow enthusiastic over, unless the home 
members of his family are appreciative amateurs in such things. 
Tired with town labor, his home must be to him a haven of repose. 
Gardeners’ bills are no pleasanter to pay than butchers’ and tai- 
lors’ bills, and the satisfaction of paying either depends on the 
amount of pleasure received, or hoped to be received, from the 
things paid for. A velvety lawn, flecked with sunlight and the 
shadows of common trees, is a very inexpensive, and may be a 
very elegant refreshment for the business-wearied eye ; and the 
manner in which it is kept will affect the mind in the same way as 
the ill or well-ordered house-keeping of the wife. But the beauties 
and varied peculiarities of a fine collection of trees, shrubs, and 
flowers require a higher culture of the taste, and more leisure for 
observation, than most business men have. All women are lovers 
of flowers, but few American ladies are yet educated in that higher 
garden culture — the art of making pictm^es with trees^ lawn, aiid 
flowers. Without this culture, or a strong desire for it, it is best 
that the more elegant forms of gardening art should be dispensed 
with, and only simple effects attempted. Now a freshly mown 
meadow is always beautiful, and a well-kept lawn alone produces 
that kind of beauty. But the meadow or lawn, without a tree, is 
tame and monotonous. Large trees are necessary to enliven their 
beauty. A well-built house, with broad porch or veranda, may ena- 
ble one to get along very comfortably without the shade of trees to 
protect its inmates from the excessive heat of the sun j but the play 
of light and shade in the foliage of trees, and upon the lawn, is as 
needful food for the eye as the sunny gayety of children is to the 
heart. These two things, then, are the most essential to the busi- 
ness man’s home — a fine lawn and large trees. The former may be 
produced in a year ; the latter must be bought ready grown on the 
