sometimes seen. They should be cultivated largely for themselves and not for their ornamental effects around the house, except, perhaps, a bed of early tulips, crocuses, and hyacinths, to be followed later in the season by verbenas or showy geraniums. They should be placed where they can be cared for lovingly, and the expanded blossoms used for ornamenting the rooms and dining-table. Cut them often aud give to your friends. Do not spare them, they will last nearly as long upon your table as upon their parent stems, and then the plants will push out new buds all the more abundantly. The pansies and mignonette, verbenas and phlox, will make an inexhaustible source of cut flowers for the table, and these, with sweet williams and perennial phlox and petunias, which are not so good for cut flowers, will furnish a display in borders at the side of the house or in its rear that will constitate a never-failing source of interest. Then we have balsams and stocks and dahlias, hollyhocks, nasturtiums and the gladiolus, and numerous climbing vines that may be placed in borders in connection with the shrubbery already named, and add another element of attractiveness to the middle ground between the drudgery of the house and the drudgery of the farm. They will give a restful influence and contribute a lasting benefit to every member of the household.

Perhaps I have given as many points as are of interest in the ornamenting and keeping of the surroundings of our houses. I should have spoken briefly, however, of the gravel walk and drive, which are, of course, a necessity from the front entrance of every well kept place. They are easily made in such a soil as I have described, by excavating a strip of earth as wide as the walk or drive desired to the depth of three or four inches and filling with good gravel. In clay soil, however, the excavation should be three times as deep and the bottom filled with coarse broken stones or pieces of brick and the surface only covered with good gravel.

There are many other points that might be taken into account in the arrangement and care and keeping of the immediate surroundings of the house. An open area, not far from the rear of the house, should be provided for the use of the laundry. This area should constitute a part of the lawn and be as well kept as any other part.

The vegetable and fruit garden should be but a few rods from the kitchen, and should be so arranged that tools may be readily taken to it from the barns and easily returned. It may be separated from the finished lawn by an evergreen screen, yet it should be so carefully arranged and nicely kept that it needs no separation so far as looks are concerned.

The barns should be so placed and arranged that the entire space between them and the house can be kept free from tools and rubbish at all times. It is as easy to have a place provided for tools out of sight of the house and under cover as to have them scattered over the grounds around the house. I have passed several places during the present winter where a miscellaneous collection of tools, from a spring-tooth harrow to a self-binder and a steam thresher, occupied the space between the house and the barns. The effect is decidedly not ornamental, to say the least. Of all the arrangements of a place, that which puts the house upon one side of the highway and the barns and open sheds directly across the way, and allows both sides of the road to receive all the old lumber and discarded rollers and cast-off tools which such a place is likely to afford, is worst.

No man is fit to train up a family who allows his premises to become lambered up with old boards and tools and rubbish. It may take a little more

time to put things where they belong when we are done using them, but they will last longer, and we have the satisfaction of always knowing where to look for an article when needed, and the further satisfaction of having our premises in good order at all times. There is a certain air of neatness and refinement about a place where the little details of keeping things in order are looked after, that is not possessed by any other; and by keeping things in order, I do not mean having everything so stiff and precise and so tremendously orthodox that all the cosy homeliness of a place is taken away.

Buildings for comfort and convenience should be provided, such as woodshed, ice-house, and other necessary outbuildings. Get together things that make a place homelike. Cherish them. Learn to like the surroundings. We as a people are too uneasy and unsatisfied; always offering our homes for sale; counting the cost of every building we erect, and saying to ourselves that we can never get our money back when we want to sell. We do not want to sell. Stick to the farm. Make it more and more homelike as the years go by. Care for the lawn and the trees, and shrubs and flowers, and the luscious fruits which no home should be without. Cherish a bit of the natural forest in which to wander of a Sunday afternoon. I am sorry for the man who figures out in his own mind the number of bushels of wheat which might be grown upon his last ten acres of forest land, and decides to burn nothing but dirty coal the rest of his life.

Husband, wife and children should mutually aid each other in making the home surroundings beautiful. Care should be taken not to poison the earth with slops, and the air with any decaying material about the house. Take the slops away from the house to the compost heap, or distribute them so far from the house that the poisons they contain are oxidized before they have a chance to penetrate the earth and poison the wells, and thus bring disease and death into our homes.

But I am making my paper longer than I intended.

A word in recapitulation. Select a place that has pleasant surroundings. Look out for all its capabilities for ornamentation and convenience, and arrange the buildings with reference to present and future needs and so that additions may be made without disarranging the general plan. Study the plans of your neighbors' buildings and grounds, especially those that always seem to have an air of homeliness about them. A place is easily kept in order if we make the right beginning. Retain the pleasant views and shut out those that may be unpleasant. Carefully keep a bit of velvety lawn, and cherish the flowers and shrubs and trees. Destroy weeds. Have a place for everything and everything in its place, and, above all, remember that our houses are our homes, and the surroundings are almost altogether what we make them-wretched, desolate and slovenly, or homelike, cheerful and neat.

us each see to it that our home, in all its surroundings, belongs to the latter class.

HOME AND SURROUNDINGS.

BY MRS. JACOB WARTMAN.

(Read at the Albion Institute.)

Adam Smith said in 1776, "People of the same trade hardly meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices" My subject will not lead me into that error.

An ideal home is not necessarily an expensive one. Let us have everything well adapted to its purposes, and whether rich or poor, let it have an air of comfort, of welcome

Farmers enjoy looking at a well-kept lawn, a tastily-planned house, painted in some soft, pretty color; but you seldom see such a home in the country. These are not expensive luxuries, and the making of a pleasant home is a thing we cannot afford to ignore. Nature loves as well to do her work beautifully for the poor as for the rich, and it only needs a little encouragement for the rusty looking garden to blossom into a wealth of beauty. It should be our aim to interest the boys and the girls in the farm life and in the work they are called upon to do. It seems to me that there are few services we may render our children of greater value than teaching them order and method in industry. See to it that they have something to do-something that, when complete, shall produce a fair result. There is no experience in a young life more sweet than the joy felt in seeing a thing take form and grow under the manipulations of their own fingers. After the first taste, there is a constant asking for something to do, and now is the opportunity to give lessons in order and method and discipline, which will cost the old heads no small amount of earnest thought.

Individualities in taste, either for study or employment, should be encouraged and cultivated. Strong peculiarities in a child may stand for genius. Make a study of the character of each child, and strive to develop and bring out its most desirable traits, and avoid anything that will irritate or vex; help each one to find that employment for which he is best fitted. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, in St. Nicholas, emphasizes the importance of young people being taught to work for a purpose; these are her words: "The education by which you mean to get your bread and butter, your gloves and bonnets, is a very different affair from that which you take upon yourself as an ornament or an interval in life. The chemical experiment, which you may some time have to explain to pupils of your own, is quite another thing from the lesson that you may never think of again. The practice in book-keeping, which may some time regulate your dealings with live flesh-and-blood-customers, becomes as interesting as a new story. The dull old rules for inflection and enumeration fairly turn into poetry if you hope to find yourself a great public reader some coming day. The girls with aims to study for, are those whose labor is richest and ripest. Ah! you will never realize till you have tried it, what an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motions of a person define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason. I fancy that I can select in the crowded street, the busy, blessed women who support themselves. They carry themselves with an air of conscious self-respect and self-content, which a shabby alpaca cannot hide, nor a bonnet silk enhance, nor sickness or exhaustion quite drag out."

But to return to the home life, I must conclude that everyone, with a little trouble, can have a pleasant, attractive front yard, with beautiful trees, flowers, and shrubbery; have rustic seats arranged here and there, with perhaps a hammock near, all placed temptingly in the shade, suggesting quiet rest. Then there is nothing gives a house a more home-like appearance than gracefully clinging vines, reaching to the very roof, covering porches and partially hiding and subduing the glare of open windows. Any part of the house which, perhaps, embodies more comfort than taste can soon be made presentable, even beautiful, by a friendly covering of vines.

Another great essential to home comforts is a good vegetable garden, and in this farmers are usually well provided. Let it be near the house, on the opposite side, if possible, from the barn and poultry yard, and then, if within the power of man or dog to accomplish, keep the hens out of it. Now, I don't want any of the heads of the family to say that the women ought to get out and operate the hoe occasionally. I am very free to own that out-door work is beneficial to the health and would be just the thing for the American women if they could get out early in the morning before their forces were exhausted, but after one has gone through with the routine of house-work there is very little strength left to get enthusiastic over gardening, and I agree with a late writer who says: "When Adam hoed potatoes in the primal garden, Eve sat on the fence and ate apples, once in a while encouraging him with a big bite, and it is after that fashion that our modern Eve's should encourage the degenerate Adams of to-day."

But, as we enter the house perhaps we encounter the greatest difficulty. There is such a diversity of opinion as to the proper furnishing of a house. Wm. Morris, who is called the Apostle of Art in the household, says: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." In following this rule, a great deal depends upon what you consider beautiful. A writer, using this quotation, follows up by saying: "Enforce this and out go your specimens of misapplied decoration-air-castles, mottoes, everything manufactured from card-board, worsted tidies, cone picture frames, hair and wax flowers, china ornaments, vases, paper plaques, Christmas, New Year, and Easter cards, etc." Let us avoid extremes; there are a great many articles in the above list that are not only pretty and ornamental, but perhaps gifts from dear friends, which make the rooms look pleasant to the inmates, and they are the ones to please.

I would finish the walls in soft subdued tints, making the pictures show to better advantage. The wall we consider the background and we do not want our background to attract attention from the more important parts of our pictures. I would have the wood-work merely polished or varnished, showing the natural grain; it means more than paint, and is better than to cover the genuine with a poor imitation. In regard to furnishing, he I think is fortunate who is not able to send off a complete bill to the cabinet rooms and have the whole house furnished at once. Furnish by degrees, pick up an article here and there, chinking in a little home upholstery occasionally; this kind of work shows the skill and industry of the household. There is always a little history attached to home-made things, a little of the home life stitched in with the embroidery or tacked on with the brass-headed nails, giving them a charm which cannot be bought. These things and some of the articles which have been classed among the "specimens of misapplied decoration," counteract the stiff, formal air of the room. Make the rooms as pleasant as possible;

let them speak a welcome for us when a guest arrives. We don't want things so new and stiff and precise that they will give a "don't touch me" sort of an impression when a stranger enters. Make our friends at ease when they enter our homes that the visit may be a pleasure to them and to ourselves. Emerson says in regard to entertaining friends: "I pray you, oh excellent wife, not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a price at any village; but let this stranger see if he will, in your looks, in your actions, in your accents and behavior, your heart and earnestness, what he cannot buy at any price at any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles and dine sparely and sleep hardly in order to behold. Certainly let the board be spread and the bed dressed for the traveler, but let not the emphasis of hospitality be in these things." It matters not whether the house be humble or grand, or whether the occupants be dressed in velvet or homespun, the welcome, if cordial, is dear to the heart of the traveler.

PROSE AND POETRY IN LIFE.

MRS. H. RANDOLPH.

(Read at the Paw Paw Institute.)

Many years ago the wisest man that ever lived said, "There is nothing new under the sun.' "" What we call new may be only old things differently compounded. So at the beginning of this paper let me warn you that the thoughts and sentiments in it are not original with the author, only things that you may have heard many times before, brought together in a little different order. The whole may be enclosed in quotation marks.

The human mind is so constituted that we find real pleasure in a change. This is why we never tire of nature. She is constantly putting on new and beautiful forms by the re-arrangement of things that have existed from the beginning. And all these different forms have their uses. She is not so prodigal of labor or means as to do anything that is useless. Then let us learn of her to find our daily pleasure in so changing and combining the elementary things about us, that the product shall be something new, useful and beautiful. To gratify this desire for variety we have, in literature, both prose and poetry.

How is it in our daily lives? Do we get enough of variety in them to make a happy mingling of prose and poetry, or have we never thought that possible? I know there are beds to be made and sweeping and dusting to be done, every day-7 days in every week, and 52 weeks in every year. And there are meals to be cooked and dishes to be washed three times each day, and 365 days in each year, for 20 years perhaps. An appallingly prosy picture, truly. But judging from the conversation and appearance of some people, I think it is a true picture of their lives. All the bright rays of sunshine and passages of poetry that might have been scattered thickly through their brief history are left out of their lives.

Webster defines prose, as language with little imagination or fire, which is dull or common place. Coleridge says poetry is the blossom and the fragrance. of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions and lan