Che Conservative *
will appear in time , richly repaying
all your efforts.
Besides the general tree-setting for
your house formed by the orchards ,
groves and forests , covering most of
your farmstead , you will want a
special tree-setting , and on this you
ought to bestow extraordinary care.
Use trees which will grow lustily in
your soil , live long , stand wind , and
cast a thick shade. They must bo
neither too near the house nor too far ,
and neither too numerous nor too
few. Most homo makers err by pro
fusion of shade near the house , ren--
doriug it unhealthy and obscuring the
prospect. If the climate is dry and
windy , more trees may surround the
house and they may stand closer to it
than is proper in damp situations. It
is often recommended that a row of
tall trees bo planted in rear of the
house , partly as an artistic booking
for it and partly to shield the barn
from view. I do not like this. Trees
in the position named are too far
away to shade the house , while they
cannot but veil the view. The barn
should be visible from the house , not
veiled , only it and all about it should
bo rendered perfectly neat and
>
sightly.
Have large gardens and flower
gardens. Make them long , the rows
lengthwise , and plant so that all
rows can bo cultivated with horse
power. Those flower strips which I
recommend as borders to your lawn or
lawns , may also be so planted as to
bo kept clean by means of the horse
plow.
I come now to the lunise itself , the
center of the farm life , where the
farmer and his family live , where his
children are born and where are
originated and developed those early
ideas , feelings and propensities which
will make or mar their lives. No man
having a house at all is so poor that
lie can afford to neglect the environ
ment of the childhood life beginning
and growing up in that house.
After such study as I have boon able
to give to the subject , I am im
pressed that no other house plan is
on the whole so advantageous or
commendable for farmers as the old-
fashioned rectangular form , providing
for a central hall , four rooms below
and four rooms above , the roof hav
ing a one-third pitch. This plan is
susceptible of indefinite variation. It
can be made rigidly puritanic as to
adornment , or it can be ornamented
in any way and to any extent. The
hall can bo largo or small. You can
add an ell for a kitchen or not as you
please , so of bay windows , dormer
wiudoAvs and porches. Other im
pressive advantages of the structure
are the great strength and the great
economy of space going with it.
Mixoh saving of expense is also se-
JET SSVwiu.
cured by the simplicity of this style
of building when repairs become
necessary , there being th ( > fewest
possible queer angles , breaks , turn
ings , pockets , gegaws and places hard
to get at.
It is with much hesitation that I
approach the subject of interior hoiise
decoration. Tastes differ and many
different methods for house beautification -
cation might be suggested , each of
which would be pleasing to highly
cultivated people.
We need first of all to divest our
selves of the idea that beautifying the
inside of a house need involve great
expense. The truth is otherwise.
Many a householder could make a
truly elegant interior with half the
expense to which ho has gone to
burden and disfigure his walls , ceil
ings and floors. Simplicity is a chief
rule of art.
To this for our present purpose wo
may add cleanliness. Any bric-a-
brac or adornment whatever which
renders it hard to keep a room clean
is out of order and contradicts the
best taste. On this account I would
not use a picture moulding or allow
any covering or ornament on any
article of furniture so constructed or
put 011 as to hide dust. I would
eschew all carpets. They are dirt
breeders and germ breeders. Use
rugs if you can get them ; if not , bare
floors made as presentable as is con
venient and kept clean.
Let us have no room , call it parlor
or what not , too nice for daily use.
Any part of your house good enough
for you will please your callers who
ever they are. One can suffer no more
chilling or inhospitable treatment
than to be shown into the best room
of many a house. You feel yourself
in a strange place , cold , lonely , unin
habited. Even if the room is perfect
in its decoration and appointments the
effect of its non-use is frigidity.
There is of coxirse no impropriety in
making certain rooms finer than
others , but all your rooms should be
for you and your family. The habit
of crowding the whole family life
into the kitchen is vulgarizing in the
extreme. As far as possible avoid
paint or interior wood work. Nat
ural wood , if neatly finished , is more
\tiful and in the end cheaper.
( I-/tho other hand when plastered
walls need something beyond neat
hard finish , it is in most cases better
to use paint than paper.
Ornaments can , with good results ,
bo changed from room to room or
from one position to another within a
room. Articles of furniture may bo
shifted in the same way. A few rich
and beautiful ornaments are better
than a too great number oven of
the best , and certainly preferable to
numerous cheap ones. Greatly to bo
recommended for people of moderate
means nro photographs , however small
and low priced , of great works of art ,
each photograph placed in an elegant
frame contrasting in color with the
wall on which it hangs. The boys
can make the frames and the girls
paint them. In these days when
copies of art master-pieces are so
inexpensive , no homo need go un
adorned.
The foregoing hints are meant to bo
useful to poor farmers as well as to
rich ones ; serviceable on the most
heavily mortgaged farms as well as
on unencumbered ones. No doubt ,
however , some of the suggestions
would , if carried out in ever so
simple a way , involve some little
expense in money and perhaps
considerable expense in labor.
Will it pay ?
It will pay. Nearly everything
needed to make the farmstead beauti
ful will in the long run pay in dollars
and cents. Granted , though , I am not
urging beautification solely or mainly
as remunerative in that sense. Life
is more than meat and the body than
raiment. It pays to lift life , mind , ,
taste , thoughts. If you , husband and
father , intent on planting and grow
ing dollars , care little for those im
material commodities , let mo plead for
your sons. Train them or let them
train themselves to a life that is not
mere drudgery. Help them learn to
love home. Make the place so attract
ive that if they leave you for a time
they will never fully rest till they
come back to the old homestead. You
can have this so if you will.
I plead , too , for the women of your
family. It pays to remove a mortgage
from your farm ; it pays certainly as
Veil to remove furrows from a wife's
brow or , what is bettor , prevent thorn
from appearing there. The lives of
farmers' wives seem in many cases
sadly monotonous , lacking in oppor
tunities for the development of sweet
ness and cheer. Their whole expres
sion , their every gesture , their very
smile often suggests weariness. Even
young girls reared on farms too often
lack that , buoyancy and freedom , | '
which belong to youth. The farmer
himself , also , to a greater extent , his >
sons , have variety of occupation , bring
ing them in touch with men and ques
tions ; but apart from occasional shop
ping in town , farmers' wives and
daughters have at best little enough -
to spice or enrich their toils. It is
said that the majority of the women
in the asylums are farmers' wives ; if
so , it is undoubtedly owing to the
dreary sameness of their experience ,
rare breaks or pauses in work that can
never end , the treadmill , the plod
ding , the over-abiding shadow. Hus
band and father , can you do less for
these loved ones than doing your best
according to your means to make the
Farmstead Beautiful ?