486 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Very few farmers have the time, taste, and skill requisite to over¬ 
come the difficulties attending floriculture on a farm. For this 
reason, it is not practical for the average farmer or his family to at¬ 
tempt to cultivate a garden exclusively devoted to flowers. But 
around every farm house there should be, and can be, a well kept 
door yard, with a handsome lawn, with trees and shrubs, and a few 
flowers. This can be so arranged as to require but little care, 
and yet add a great deal of beauty and pleasure to the home. In 
the first place, prepare the lawn so that you will have a carpet of 
green grass before the door. This is the thing indispensable. 
Then, if the yard is small, a few trees and shrubbery, such as you 
like best, set in remote parts of the yard. Then place what flowers 
you do have very near the house. You can take care of a small 
flower bed while you would be going back and forth to the middle 
of the lawn. A very pretty way is to make a narrow bed two feet 
or 18 inches wide at the side of the house, or all around it if you 
have the time to care for so many flowers; then arrange varieties 
according to their habits and your taste. Dahlias will grow best 
under the drip of the eaves, and the dwelling will afford protection 
from the winds. Pansies will do best at the north or east side in 
partial shade, while verbenas should be in the sunshine on the 
south. Among these should be others more delicate, that will give 
a pretty contrast in colors, and always remember you cannot have 
too many white flowers. Then there should be a vine for the win¬ 
dow or door, for a basket or trellis, and when all is completed your 
house will appear as though set in a frame work of flowers. If you 
can do more than this, a well kept bed of annuals in the center of 
the lawn is very handsome, but a large vase or lawn basket is quite 
as ornamental, and very much easier kept in good condition. If 
the dooryard is small, a narrow bed all around the yard next to the 
fence has a very pleasing effect, but most of the door-yards in the 
country are not enclosed except on the road, and shrubbery or trees 
or the termination of the lawn marks its boundary, in which case 
flowers give most satisfaction near the house, if time is limited. 
The best way to plant seeds we have found to be in a box of 
earth near the door or window, and when the plants are two or 
three inches high transplant wffiere you wish them to grow. A few 
kinds planted with the vegetables will beguile one into their cul¬ 
ture, yet take little time from necessary work and give much beauty 
