Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1895-08-15
BEAuTiFY THE HOME.

The Farmers Life May Thus BE Rendered
More Cheerful
If asked to mention some way for
making life on the farm attractive to
the children I should very certainly
suggest among other things the grad
ual beautifying of the old home by
ways and means that are within the
reach of every farmers family. T.
often seems strange to me that mon
and women can go on year after year
living amid homely surroundings in
the country without once trying to
bring bit of natural beauty into the
aspect of things about the home and
the farm. One may drive through
even those portions of many cities
where day laborers have erected their
tiny, inexpensive little homes, and see
the uproud owners, the father back
from his days work, the children. the
mother, perhaps, with a baby in her
arms, all intent on adding some little
touch of beauty to the few rods of land
they can call their own. 1t may be
shrub or small tree that has been Sc
cured, and is being carefully set out by
the side of the walk, or a vine is being
trained up over the side of the little
house to add grace and beauty to it.
With regret l have to confess that I
rarely see anything OF this kind on the
farms throughout the country, where
natural advantages are abundant, and
where a little work in identifying a
place will give such wonderful results.
From my own experience l know
Shere is nothing that will appeal more
strongly to the interest of a farmers
boy than to enlist his sympathies and
assistance in an attempt to Fix up the
old rolo nd
Svill so surely arouse his love for home,
and the work done there, as the MAX
ing of the home, with his cooperation,
"a place that he can be proud Of How
many boys and girls on taking friend
home with them after they have gone
.out into the world have had to stifie
feeling of shame when they turned in
to the old place. with it's needlessly
bare and forbidding aspect. that with
out any expense but a little loving la
Dor might have been made attractive?
How many boys and girls are there
who also go back in this way and feel
"A thrill of pride in their hearts as they
say: This is the place. This is the
dear old farm. See that hemlock
hedge l set out dozen years ago, and
those naples and elms father and
brought from the lower pasture and
set out there by the drive. And there
is the oodbine, covering the whole
end of the old house, that Nell and I
planted when we were children. The
old place looks prettier and prettier
every year as I come back to it,
1t doesn't cost much money to make
a country home look beautiful, only
little work Tor better, play in helping
nature to cover up the bare and ugly,
i L
natural beauties.
How much work is it to make the
drive from the highway sweep in a
graceful curve up to the door, and to
flank it here and there with hem
lock, spruce or some other beautiful
native tree, dug from the pasture Or
woodland? A little time now and then
that would have been idled away at
the store or blacksmith shop, and the
result would double the value of the
place in many eyes. Seeds of quick
growing and beautiful vines cost but
a few cents, and the result would be a
covering of a dozen bare and ugly
spots, render splendid bank of green
in summer, or glowing scarlet or
crimson in autumn; but year after year
goes by and the ugly spots remain, and
what comes to be commonplace
round of drudgery, both indoors and
out, is unrelieved by a single beauti-
flying interest in life. One can never
realize until such an interest has come
into his daily existence, what a won
derfu1 invigoratOr it is to life and to
life's work. Without some such in
terest to sweeten things, work becomes
a treadmil1. l don't believe it makes
a man any less successful as farmer
because he loves flowers and trees and
shrubs, and finds little time occasion
ally to care for them. I believe it
makes him all the better farmer and
/ know it makes him a better man
finer in grain, more sympathetic, more
companionable. 1 am quite sure that
a man cannot begin to take an interest
in improving the looks of his home
without beginning to improve the
character of his farming. The one
thing follows the other. He will be-
gin to take pride in his stock and de-
sire it to be of the best. He will take
pride in haying fine garden, and in
the crops that grow in his field, and
this better farming will mean better
financial returns. 1 wish could start
growing in the heart of every farmer
in the land this desire for home beau
tifying. l know then it would not be
long before we should have a nation
OF better farmers. Farmer