Year: 1875

The country looks at no time more
richi nd beautiful, says the New York
Times, than when in spring the trees are
in full leaf, with all the brilliancy of
their verdure; the crops are fresh and
green with rapid growth; the lands, as q
rule, are clean and we'll tended, rs at
this time of year they of necessity must
be; and in the meadows tho grass and
clover are fast fastening to maturity.
Trees and shrubs are in blossom, and
the whole aspect is one of life, health,
and luIurianoe. But you may visit very
many farmhouses, very many country
residences of city men, without finding
a well-planned flower garden. Here and
there farmers wife may be found who
has taste for such things. She has
few flower beds which she cherishes on
the front lawn. Approach them, and
you must walk knee-deep in grass, only
to see, perhaps, lot of drawn-out
petunias, or group Of sickly pansies at
the bottom of grassy well. If she
have soul a little above pansies, she
will apologize for the state of the lawn !;
but the grass is growing up for hay, she
tells you, and the flowers meanwhile
have to get along as best they can.
Flowers do not pay, but grass is money,



walls.


But is it true that flowers do not pay
In the first place, we deny altogether
the doctrine that nothing pays which is
not convertible into dollars and cents.
the material for n very excellent flower
garden. A moderate amount of labor
will suffice to get such a garden into
nd fn
must be the expenditure of a little
money and of some trouble, and besides
that, there is the loss of probably q
couple Of dollars more in the desirability
of not turning the lawn into bayfield,.
On the other side of the account, we
confess that no dollars are to be placed !;
but there are profits of another kind.
The custom of measuring everything by
its mqhey value is O mistake. 1t is i'm
pressed upon the minds of boys and
girls from their infancy, and there is no
telling how much evil springs from it.
The farmer who teaches his boys that
the garden lawn must be TUNED into
dollars, would do them an infinitely
greater service If he would devote that
lawn and its flower beds to the culture of
his children's aesthetic faculties. They
might possibly grow up more honest,
and they would certainly grow up less
rugged and uncouth.


The city merchant who moves into
the country every spring, and takes a
sort Of city house on village lot, may
think that he is giving himself and his
family all the enjoyments of country
life. He is to be there only q few
months, and he argues that to cultivate
the little plot of ground around the
house would not pay. So he is content
to let its nakedness be covered with
weeds. But for the same reason that
he adorns his pariors with works of art,
and cultivates the elegancies of social
life in his city mansion, should he also
fill his garden with flowers. His wife
and children, his friends, and he him
self, too, would reap the reward in the
influence which such luxuries, cheap
though they be, have upon the mind.
Farmers and permanent residents Of the
country have no excuse whatever for not
enjoying and letting their families enjoy
all the advantages which the country
affords. The few dollars they may save
by their present plan are more than set
off by the loss which accrues to their
children in education-for mental train
ing is as much part Of education as the
mere acquisition of school learning.
And the sooner desire to improve every
means for attaining that end becomes
general, the sooner we shall have at-
tanned to the first step toward higher
standard of mental and moral culture.