The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-12-29
TIMELY HINTS.
How Farm Houses Can BE Made to Look
Pleasing I'm Winter.

How Farm Houses Can BE Made to Look
Pleasing I'm Winter.
Farmers of moderate means and
small farms, who wish to have pleasant
homes, and to make them pleasant to
their children, should keep the sur
roundings of their dwellings neat and
tidy till the SHOWS of winter close the
autumn work. 1t happens too often
that in the hurry of late autumn opera
tons, various kinds of rubbish are
scattered and left on the ground, such
as straw, leaves. pieces of boards and
the various refuse materials from the
winter storage of apples. potatoes. corn,
etc. 1t requires no more work In the
end TO keep the ground clear of these
defacing objects, than to clean them
up after they are half decayed at some
future time. Such work is controlled
by habit; and the owner who acquires
the habit of keeping everything clean
and neat. does it without effort and
with very little add tional time and
labor. Among other matters. many
dwellings are rendered somewhat re-
pulsive all winter, and in late autumn
and early spring. bv the necessary pro-
lection of their cellars from frost. and
by the unnecessarily rough manner in
which this protection is gwen. Some
| bank up earth and sods against the
underpinning outside; others pile
! straw, and secure it with stakes or
brush, and others, again, adopt the
still less ornamental practice of heap
ing manure against the cellar walls.
We have referred to this matter on a
former occasion, and we recur to it
again as a matter of sufficient import
ance to bear repetition. If cellar
walls, or such portion of them as
are above ground. are properly built.
so as TO enclose an ar space. or
to include q stratum of tan, sawdust
or ashes, they will need no additional
outside covering; but where this pro-
vision has not been made neat pro-
lection may be made by heaping dry
leaves up against the walls, and then
keeping them in a place with the
branches of evergreen trees. in the
form of neat green thatch. The
branches should be cut so as to be just
long enough to reach from the top to
the bottom of the sloping bank of
leaves; and they must be placed in
verted to shed the rain. Since the
time when nurserymen had made ever
green trees abundant and cheap. and
of the many which have been set out in
the last twenty years. more or less re-
quire sharpening or shortening in to keep
them within bounds. or to preserve
their symmetry; and this pruning. done
in the late fall. gives good supply of
branches for the work here mentioned,
as well as for the protection of the
strawberry beds. half-tender roses. and
for other purposes. A neat covering
may be given to the circular flower
beds of the lawn, by placing evergreen
branches in a circle. radiating from
the center. For plants which retain
their green leaves in winter, no other
covering should be given, as it might
cause smotheriRg and decay; but if the
leaves of the plants die or drop before
winter, few inches, or even foot of
dry leaves. may be first placed on the
bed, and then held in position with the
evergreens.
Lawns and surroundings of dwell
ings are sometimes rendered need
leSsly repulsive with coarse manure
spread in lay ers over the surface, where
it remains all winter. Ii manure is
used at all. it should be in finely pull
verified state and very evenly spread.
On large lawns. after old manure has
been applied. it may be finely pulver.
lied by passing smoothing harrow or
similar implement over it several times,
mixing it with the grass and rendering
it MISUNDERSTANDING Gentleman.