Mineral Point tribune. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1854-1858, 1856-02-12
4grltultural Department.
PLEASANT HOMES.

1t is just as important that farmers have pleas
ant homes and yards, as that merchants and doc
tors and lawyers and ministers do. We all live
for happiness, and if identifying our homes
adds to that happiness, it is certainly wise to do
it. And now, when many farmers in this
section are commencing their future homes, it is
a good time to talk about it.
"Pshaw," says some cross-eyed money hunt
ing farmer, :" what care 1 for front yards green
shrubs, red roses, white cottage or papered
rooms Give me a big farm, big wheat, big
pumpkins and big hogs, leave posey growing
to old maids and young lovers" Well-hold
on a moment, and let us reason together. What
did God clothe this earth in beauty for, if we
are to have no love for the beautiful? How
much more will it cost to select pleasant site
for house, than unpleasant one How
much is an acre of ground, for yards about the
house, worth How much more will 1t cost TO
finish your home neat and tasty than rough and
ugly? Not hundred dollars for the whole, We
venture. You can lay out and ornament your
yards odd spells, when it will only relieve you
from the monotony of field labor and it costs
little more on the start, and much less after
wards to finish the dwelling neatly. and have it
well painted. And now let US look at some of
the gain In the first place, while with your
hand you ornamenting your yards and dwell
iings with whatever gratifes love of the beau
it'll YOU are taking out some of the worst kinks
that an ordinate desire for property has wrought
in your soul, and expanding it with ali the ge-
nialities that nature can bestow and you can
not long pursue and relish such with
out becoming better and happier. The value
of this cannot be estimated in dollars and cents.
In the next place, by such course You are bet
tering the character by elevating the thoughts
and objects, of your family; and consequently
their of happiness viii be doubled You
hardly find neat cottage, with ornamental
vines climbing the windows, and shrubs and
roses grazing the yards, that does not contain a
pleasant, contented and happy family while,
on the other hand the rough untdv, half fin
ished house, with cows and hogs and geese about
the doors-not tree shrub flower to relive
its Enthusiastically contains weak or crab
bed man, disconsolate or sloyenly woman and
low-bred, disobedient children. We by no
say that this is always the case, but the
exceptions have their reasons, and prove the gen
eral rule.
But in addition to all these things the farm
er who takes pains to ornament and beautifv his
home is TO add thousand little convent
onces out of which grow so many Of the enjoy
Inents of life and without these convenIences
there is not likely to be any great pecGni-
airy prosperity. But suppose by rejecting all
the beauties of home and all the little convent
ences, eating only pork and beans and cheating
your back OF half its necessary covering, you
succeed in making one or two or three thousand
dollars more than you would by cultivating your
soul with your farm what good viii it do >
viii 1t afterwards buy you any enioyments p
No; because You have acquired no relish for
that way of disposing of your property. VIII
it beLetit your children if left to them? No
because money left to children without the high
est mental and moral cultivation, Is only apt to
work their ruin
We do not speak of those things, supposing
every farmer, especially in a new country, can
at once have II comfortable, neat and tasty
home. But they can all make right calculations
and plans, and make their homes pleasant as
fast as time and circumstances viii permit and
thus cultivate III themselves and families a love
for the beautiful which viii add hundred fold
TO the sum of their enjoyment, and be bless
ing to the ncighborhoods in which they live and
to generations which are to follow Wjsconsis.
Mirror.