154 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS 
CONDUCTED BY 
MRS. FRANCES COPLEY SEAVEY. 
HELPFUL HINTS IN HOME DECORATION. 
Apt and applicable extracts from “The Decoration 
of Home Grounds,” a paper by C. B. Whitnall of Mil- 
waukee, Wis., and read by him Aug. 19, 1903, before 
A WOODLAND PATH AT OLD MISSION, MICH. 
the Society of American Florists, at its meeting held 
in that city : 
“The first essential of a beautiful home is to have 
beautiful people live in it.” 
“What can he done for an English family living in 
a Swiss cottage situated on an Illinois prairie ? * * * 
The point I wish to emphasize is that any manipula- 
tion of landscape that is not natural in itself and that 
does not harmonize with the customs and usages of 
the animal life in and about it, cannot be beautiful.” 
“A path through a wood is almost always beautiful. 
* * * The first traveler did not create the path, nor 
the second. At the beginning many routes were taken, 
but gradually, without open discussion or even con- 
scious consideration, we have taken a vote; the ma- 
jority being of about the same temperament, the vari- 
ation in travel lessened until, finally, a defined impress 
was made. * * * Vegetation falling into line, the 
shady nook, the bleak point, the wet and the dry 
places, each select their favorites from the supplv of 
seeds carried along by wind, water or animals — thou- 
sands and millions perishing that we may have the 
benefit of the fittest. This is Nature’s slow and indus- 
trious method of bringing about results and it always 
terminates in beauty. It is the history of the Country 
Path. Did it ever occur to you that paths are always 
beautiful, while walks laid out by an individual sel- 
dom are? Sometimes a manufactured walk becomes a 
path — an occurrence too rare !” 
“It does seem a pity that we are compelled to begin 
some of our most important efforts at the roof and 
work down to the foundation.” 
“Nature, untiring, never missing an opportunity to 
set a good example, very quietly and gently trans- 
forms onr failures into beauty spots. Many a million- 
aire’s home becomes beautiful after the owner has 
lost his fortune ; many a town site, once beautiful, but 
destroyed by man’s ambition, returns to beauty after 
man’s failure is acknowledged.” 
“It seems curious to see a person pay $2,000 for a 
canvas landscape and then pay a gardener to prevent 
the real thing from forming outside his own win- 
dow.” 
"The effort to lay out a town in squares is a fatal 
mistake. * * * The added distance of travel they 
necessitate is not the only bad result. Traveling around 
the squares forces us onto hills and into holes and, act- 
ing on the theory that two wrongs make one right, we 
cut down the bills to fill the holes, thus destroying the 
WILDWOOD DRIVE, GRACELAND CEMETERY, CHICAGO. 
An artificial roadwaj’ that might easily be mistaken for a woodland road 
