c, GuElmw CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was borrowed on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons far disciplinary action and may result In dismissal from the University. TO RENEW CALL TELEPHONE CENTER, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN JAN 09 \m JAN J 7 1992 APR 1 4 1394 1 1995 DEC ? ? 2001 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT UR3ANA-CHA1VPA'' When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. 78733 L162 _1 . ffi ilffinii This house is built on horizontal lines, to repeat the great horizontal lines of the prairie. See page 3 This is Circular 170 of the Agricultural Experiment Station, published by the Department of Horticulture, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1914 COPIES FREE TO ANYONE IN ILLINOIS WHO WILL SIGN A PROMISE TO DO SOME PERMANENT ORNAMENTAL PLANTING WITHIN A YEAR I. THE CONNECTICUT STYLE OF FARM ARCHITECTURE AND PLANTING "Connecticut has many a clapboarded farmhouse shaded by white oaks or other trees that were here when the first white man came, while on lawn may be a rhododendron or mountain laurel planted by the great-grandfather of the present owner." (See page 3.) St'gn and mail this to Wilhelm Miller, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois If you have already signed a ballot, give this to a friend. A copy of Circular 170 will be sent to everyone who signs one of these promises to do some permanent ornamental planting within a year. Australian Ballot for the People of Illinois / WILL Q Plant or improve my WINDBREAK, not live in a bare, wind-swept spot. Q SCREEN unsightly objects, e. g., barnyard and outbuildings. Frame the VIEW of my house from the road and of the farm from my dining- room and -porch. Plant bushes and vines against the FOUNDATIONS of my house. Make a good permanent LAWN, not a cheap weed-patch, and keep the center open, not scatter plants over it. Have SHRUBBERY, instead of artificial hedges, or temporary flower-beds in the middle of the lawn. Save old TREES on lawn, roadside, or pasture. Q Plant chiefly long-lived NATIVE MATERIAL, not short-lived "quick-growers," or foreign and artificial varieties. Q Make a practical FLOWER-GARDEN, e. g., a cut-flower, bird, children's, wild, winter, or tree-garden, instead of copying something eastern, English, or Italian. Q] Plant an ILLINOIS BORDER, sacred to Illinois trees, shrubs, and wild flowers. Q Restore and preserve the LOCAL COLOR, instead of destroying every shrub within a mile. Q Adopt the ILLINOIS WAY, not the gaudy, conventional, and imitative style, for I do not want my place to look like every beginner's the world over. Q Build and plant a PERMANENT COUNTRY HOME. ^] PLAN or re-plan my home grounds, or engage a landscape gardener. Without agreeing to pay anybody anything, I promise to do some permanent ornamental planting within a year. Address. lawn ) Pl('isr- Cfi !MsM>a m iPainsa (Sam @i a t 3,5 p2" autf Ps?!?^ Sim s ^znrssi&gisl aan jPHamjnaingj sisnifl IPHmarJainDj "& 3 'Joins 1 Faa-SM^ iJny S^ftMaug g ttSi J\.(Mdl 3Hsi Siroam a (Sasli '^iilus 5? OBODY can afford to have bare and ugly home grounds. It is bad business. Of course, we do not commonly take a business view of our homes; we think of home in terms of sentiment. For we all want the best there is in life, and we know we can raise better children if they have beautiful sur- roundings. But, granting that we all have the best sentiment in the world, we cannot escape the business side. For in- stance, we all have to consider the cost of making a lawn, of fertilizing and planting. Now, there are two ways of handling these practical matters, one of which gives little or no profit while the other gives very great profits. Of course, you do not expect to make money out of your home you expect to live in it, but the day will come when you or your children will wish to sell part or all of your property. And the buyer will look at everything you have done from the cold, unsympathetic viewpoint of hard-cash value. The man of wealth who indulges every personal whim, and makes an eccentric place, will lose a lot of money. On the other hand, if you leave your place bare, it may be absolutely unsalable when the time of need comes, or you will get less than it is worth. But, if your farm is sensibly planted, you can get a bigger profit for the money you put into trees and shrubs than for the same money spent on house, barn, or hogs. Then old trees, that cost you nothing to plant, may bring you a millionaire buyer. Ten dollars spent on shrubs and vines planted against the foundation of your house may add $100 to its cash selling value. This circular tells of people who have found buyers, or actually made 100 to 1,000 per cent profit, from ornamental planting. Such profits sound like a "get- rich-quick scheme," but that they are made is true. And the reason for these enormous profits is that what you plant on your lawn is seen by everybody. It may be much more impor- tant to spend $100 on a bathroom; but, for one person who sees the $100 you spend on plumbing or interior decoration, there are thousands of passers-by who see the $10 spent in your front yard. If you spend that $10 in the ordinary way of "beautifying the farm," you will get back not one single cent. If you spend it in the "Illinois way," you cannot help increasing the cash value or salability of your farm, because permanent trees are worth, for beauty alone, $i a square inch in cross-section of their trunk three feet above the ground, and they increase in value every year. THE COMMON WAY OF PLANTING IS UNPROFITABLE The common way of planting is to scatter flower-beds over a lawn. (See Fig. 2.) It aims to make the biggest show for the money and get immediate results. That is why begin- ners make fancy beds of complicated design and fill them with coleus and cannas, which give great masses of striking color for three months or more. But next winter those beds are vacant and ugly, and next spring the same work must be done, and every year there is a fresh outlay of money for the same thing. Soon the constant repetition of the work gets monotonous, and next we realize that the effect is gaudy; for our standards are constantly rising, and what we admired }f Planting a Lawn he "Illinois Way" of Planting a Lawn This sort of thing intoxicates beginners the world over. The plants are scattered, so Leaving the center open and grouping the shrubs at the sides, so as to frame a picture to make the biggest show. Ninety per cent are foreign or artificial varieties, e.g., cut- of the home. The trees are not trimmed up like street trees, but all the lower branches are ved, weeping, and variegated shrubs, or tender foliage plants and double flowers, such preserved, and bushes connect lawn and trees. Ninety per cent are hardy trees and shrubs as to mak leav , , , , as cannas, coleus, and the double hydrangea. Why not move such plants to the back yard or garden? In the front yard they tend to make all the world look alike. . , preserved, and bushes connect lawn and trees. Ninety per cent are hardy-trees and shrubs native to Illinois. Let Illinois look different from all the rest of the world! (Magnus place, . Winnetka, same as cover. House by Spencer, grounds by Jensen.) THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 4. The English Style of Farm Architecture and Planting The kind of house that has sheltered ten generations of farmers in the same family. Surrounded by English oaks and English daffodils. Let us learn from England to plant permanent trees, instead of temporary ones, like soft maples and poplars. five years ago now seems in bad taste. It dawns on us that any beginner can put flower-beds in the middle of the lawn, and that every beginner will try to make each dollar stand up on edge where everyone can see it. Thus, we come to hate show, and to care more for privacy, permanence, dignity, peace, restfulness, outdoor living, winter comfort, views, a playground for the children, old trees, cut-flowers in the house all the time, and low cost of maintenance. Why lose money by planting now what you will tear out five years hence, when you know better? Why not anticipate the growth of your own and everybody's good taste, so that you will waste no precious years, and your place will grow lovelier and more valuable every year? THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF PLANTING The right way is to use permanent plants, instead of tem- porary ones; and to place them where they will meet every practical need of the family, instead of scattering them for show. (See Fig. 3.) And the "Illinois way" is to meet all the outdoor needs of the family by having ninety per cent of the plant- ing composed of trees and shrubs that grow wild in Illinois. Why Illinois trees? Because they are hardy, and therefore economical to maintain. We do not have to test their hardiness, since Nature has adapted them to our conditions by experi- ments covering tens ot thousands of years. Moreover, we want Illinois to look different from all the rest of the world, and to have a noble character of its own! The highest ideal that any farmer can realize is to have a profitable farm with permanent buildings and permanent planting, both of which are utterly different from those of Europe, and as full as possible of Ameri- can and even of state character. THE EUROPEAN WAY European farm homes are so different that you can usually tell simply from a picture whether they are German, French, Dutch, Italian, or Spanish. The English farmer often lives in a house of brick or stone which has sheltered his family for generations. (See Fig. 4.) In front of it stand a pair of oaks that have defied the storms of 300 to 500 years. The house is covered with ivy or with roses, which climb to the top of the red-tiled roof. The yard is surrounded by a hedge of hawthorn or of holly. The Englishman boasts that he loves his home more than any other man living, and points to the fact that the English language is the only one that has separate words for "house" and "home." THE AMERICAN WAY Every old state in America tends to have its own style of building and planting. Massachusetts is famous for her Colo- nial, or Georgian houses, like the one in which Longfellow lived, with century-old elms sheltering the stately roof like gigantic umbrellas. Virginia is celebrated for the farmhouses built by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and their friends their hospitable roofs shaded by towering tulip trees or ancient live-oaks hung with moss. Long Island is noted for the homes of its cauliflower growers, with every room open to the ocean breeze, and the white, wide-shingled walls set off by feathery locust trees, loaded in June with wistaria-like clusters of fra- 5. The Lancaster County Style of Farm Architecture and Planting In Pennsylvania, a single glance from the car-window will often tell you what county you_ are in. In Lancaster County you see brick houses like this, with double porches, quaint projections on the roof to prevent snowslides, and a "date stone." We need three different types of farmhouse and planting in northern, central, and southern Illinois. The Delaware County Style of Farm Architecture and Planting In Pennsylvania, whenever you see farmhouses of native stone set up in this way, it is a fair guess that you are in Delaware, Bucks, or some adjacent county. Let us nave local color too, instead of "French rehash" or cheap imitations of Italy or England! Let us have permanent farm homes! CL -LA-JjlLElTttV/ THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 7. What We See Too Often in Illinois A wooden building covered with meaningless ornamentation and gaudy paints, and with- out a single tree or shrub to make it look at home. To fit the country, a house should be long and low; this is tall and narrow a total misfit. Country houses should not be built on city models. (This citified sham and firetrap cost over $5,000.) grant white flowers. Georgia is renowned for her houses in the Greek style, which are genuinely adapted to a hot climate by reason of their "galleries," or second-story porches, where the family can enjoy every passing breeze and feast their eyes upon the grandest subtropical tree in the world, Magnolia grandiflora. Connecticut has many a clapboarded farmhouse, shaded by white oaks that were here when the first white man came, while on the lawn may be a rhododendron or mountain laurel, planted by the great-grandfather of the present owner. (See Fig. i.) In Pennsylvania you can often tell what county you are in by a single glance out of the car-window. If you see everywhere massive farmhouses of local stone, laid up in Ger- mantown style, it is a fair wager that you are in Bucks, Chester, or Delaware County. (See Fig. 6.) If your eye meets ancient brick houses, with porches extending the full length of each house, a diamond-shaped stone bearing the date of its erec- tion (see Fig. 5), and odd little projections on the slate roof, to keep the snow from falling off in great chunks that may bury a person, it is a safe guess that you are in Lancaster or some adjacent county. The great variety of majestic oaks that have brooded for a century or more over these venerable houses proclaim that eastern Pennsylvania is a paradise for trees designed by Nature to last through the centuries. Even 8. What We Want to See Oftener in Illinois A genuine farmhouse, built of permanent native materials, and surrounded by perma- nent native plants nothing rare, costly, or foreign. Adapted to the climate, soil, labor conditions, family, and landscape. Cost $4,000. (Home of Joseph E. Wing, the well-known agricultural expert and writer, at Mechanicsburg, Ohio.) in the new state of Oregon, the up-to-date apple-growers of Hood River are laying the foundations of a state style of architecture and gardening, with their low houses, screened porches, and paths lined with great double garden roses bloom- ing in a profusion that is impossible in the East. Every state will eventually have its own style of farm architecture and gardening. Nothing can stop it, and we can profit by build- ing and planting in the style that will become dominant as the centuries roll by. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF FARM ARCHITECTURE AND GARDENING What we want is an "Illinois way" of farm architecture and gardening, and already we have some splendid examples of the "real thing." (See the cover, which shows the Magnus place at Winnetka, designed by Robert C. Spencer, landscape by Jens Jensen.) This house is built on horizontal lines, to repeat the great horizontal lines of land, woods, crops, and clouds, which are the peculiar glory of the prairie. The hawthorn at the right is planted for the same purpose. Over 95 per cent of the plants are permanent and native to Cook County. This is the work of a new and virile school of western art, which 9. The "Illinois Way" of Sheltering Crops Windbreak of red cedar in a nursery of seedling trees at Dundee, III. Efficient after twenty years, none of the lower branches being gone. (Red cedar is unpopular in fruit- growing regions because the cedar apples may transmit a disease to fruits.) 10. The "Illinois Way" of Sheltering Stock Windbreak of arborvitK at Crystal Lake, 111. Cattle can be fattened quicker and at less cost when protected from winter winds than on unprotected farms. "Arborvitae is the best windbreak for Illinois," says a veteran nurseryman," and will last one hundred years." THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM believes in "local color." Its home is the Cliff Dwellers' Club, in Chicago. These men no longer fear or despise the prairie; they love it, and are opening our eyes to its true wonder and beauty. Among them are Lorado Taft in sculpture, Hamlin Garland and Nicholas V. Lindsay in poetry; Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in archi- tecture; Frank C. Peyraud and Charles Francis Browne in paint- ing; O. C. Simonds and Jens Jensen in landscape gar- dening. We want something better than the type we see everywhere in 1 1 1 i n o i s the wooden, citified house, that is loaded with gin- gerbread, painted in a half-dozen gaudy colors, and without a single tree or shrub to reconcile it with natural surround- ings. (See Fig. 7.) Our first job is to build houses that will fit the prairie climate, soil, labor conditions, life, and landscape, as does Joseph E. Wing's house in Ohio. (See Fig. 8.) His house fits the country because it is long and low not tall and nar- row, as city houses have to be. It fits the labor con- ditions, because it is a servantless house, arranged to save the house- wife's steps, and easy to care for with such devices What wild as the vacuum- and fragrance wlen in blooml cleaner, power-washer, mangle, and other apparatus described by Mrs. Eugene Davenport in "Possibilities of the Country Home." (This pamphlet may be obtained free of charge by addressing a request to the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station.) The Illinois farmhouse must be better adapted to our climate than the tenant house . of the Corn Belt, for the winter winds sweep right through such a shell, and during our hot summers it is "a regular oven." We want a house that is warm at twenty below zero, and cool during corn weather, by reason of its sleeping- or dining-porch and its overshadowing eaves or trees. So, too, with planting; we want an "Illinois way" of landscape gardening that will be like an old-fashioned ship every line for use, and not a single dollar for mere show. Let us plant only what is necessary, profitable, or reasonable, and the result cannot help being beautiful ! WINDBREAKS FOR PROFIT AND BEAUTY "The greatest enemy of the farmer," says Theodore Roose- v e 1 1 , "is the wind." Clearly, the first step in the "Illinois way" is to provide shelter from the biting winds of winter and the drying winds of summer. The pioneers did this before they built their cabins, but many of their de- scendants are cut- ting down big trees because they believe trees are not worth the space they take especially on land worth $200 an acre. Opinions differ widely as to the best trees for windbreaks, and the best way to arrange them ; but much help can be had from the most elaborate work on the subject, viz., "Windbreaks," by Carlos G. Bates (Bulletin 86 of the Forest Service), which can be had at a small price from the Super- intendent of Pub- lic Documents, Washington, D. C. L. H. Bailey gives thirteen points in favor of windbreaks and four against them in his "Principles of Fruit- Growing." See Figs. 9 and 10. SCREENING UNSIGHTLY OBJECTS An Illinois farmer wanted to sell his farm, but could not find a buyer. The reason for this, which no one realized, was the ugly, bad-smelling barnyard right across the road from the house. One night the barn burned down, and after that the farmer sold his farm for more than he had asked before. The reason was two-fold: The unsightly barnyard was removed, n. The "Illinois Way" of Screening Unsightly Objects I, at no cost, in seven years in Champaign County, four miles from Urhana. Imagine its beauty THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 12. Unsightly Objects That Should Be Screened 13. Free Material for Screening Unsightly Objects The humblest renter in Illinois can at least cover an outhouse with wild cucumber vines in one seasonal no cost. Wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata) is native to Illinois But permanant vines are better. Anyone with two hands and a spade can dig up elder, sumach, or trumpet creeper. and the humblest tenant can collect the seeds. Or five cents Evergreens are still better, because beautiful the year round. will buy enough to hide the outbuildings shown in Fig. 12. and a fine view of the prairie which no one had ever seen was revealed. Can't you arrange your windbreak so that it will also act as a screen hiding some barnyard, outbuilding, tele- phone wires, billboard, or advertisement-covered building? The humblest renter in Illinois can at least cover the outhouse in a single season without cost, by the aid of wild cucumber vines. (See Figs. 12 and 13.) Wild grape (Fig. n) or trumpet- creeper will do a better job; and anyone who has two hands, a wheelbarrow, and a spade, can dig up enough elder and sumach from the roadside to make the outbuildings decent without delay. Evergreens make ideal screens because they are effective the year round. If these are not thrifty in your locality, try lattice. This may cost something for material and labor, but it is worth it, because it hides that outbuilding or ash-heap without delay, both summer and winter. For other screening suggestions, see Figs. 14 to 16. THE VIEW FROM THE ROAD The salability of a property is often influenced by the first impression which the public gets of the house. (See Figs. 19 and 20.) If you see a house too far away, it seems mean or small; if you turn a corner and are suddenly confronted by the house, the approach is too abrupt. A house should be first seen from the point where it appears to the best advantage. Remember this w^hen choosing a site for your new house. If the location is fixed, can't you rearrange your drive? For instance, if the house is visible too far away, curve your drive and plant the curves, so that the house will be hidden until you come to the best place for re- vealing it. For other suggestions about the approach, see Figs. 17 and 18. GIVE YOUR HOUSE A BACKGROUND A background makes all the difference between a house and a home. (See Figs. 21 and 22.) Your house will be twice as easy to sell if it is seen against woods or orchards rather than empty sky. If your house is already located and has no background, plant some tall-growing trees behind it. Why not plant some of the trees that reach their greatest height in the state of Illinois, e.g., the sycamore, the linden, the sweet gum, and the tulip tree, which has gorgeous cup-like flowers, four inches across, of yellow marked with orange? A GLIMPSE IS BETTER THAN THE WHOLE Again, "a glimpse is usually better than the whole thing," as Mr. O. C. Simonds often says. Most of the old farmhouses in Illinois are very poor architecturally. The ideal is a new and better home; the next best thing is remodeling; but if neither is practical, can't you hide the unattractive part by planting, and show the attractive ? Even a house that is as false and ugly as Fig. 7 may have some good detail. Study once more the house you think hopeless, and hold your hands before your eyes in such a way as to hide the bad and show the good. Then see if you cannot find trees that will do the work in a reasonable time. FRAME THE VIEW YOUR HOUSE OF 14. The Illinois Rose to Cover Clothes-posts Clothes-posts need not be ugly. They can be made beautiful the year round by planting a prairie rose (Rosa sctigera) at the base of each post. To train it, simply tack a piece of cloth over each shoot. Let us plant an Illinois rose against every clothes-post in Illinois! You can greatly increase the value of your property by planting the right sort of trees at either end of your house, so as to frame a picture of your home. Many a rich man in the East pays hun- dreds of dollars extra for a farm because the old house is surrounded by century- old elms. He builds a big new house under the old trees and at once it looks old and mellow. The pioneers thought only of shade and shelter from the wind, and so they commonly planted trees all around the farmhouse, generally too near one another and too close to the house. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 15. Before Screening Unsightly Objects "Every time we sat down to rest or take a meal, I had to look at this barn, windmill, cider-house, and spraying outfit. Finally Mrs. Dunlap and I got sick of it." 16. After Screening Unsightly Objects "So we planted a border of trees and shrubs. Four years later we had this garden to look at. This sort of thing can often he done for about $10." (Signed) Henry M. Dunlap, rruit-grower. Savoy, III. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 17. A Common Way of Approaching the Farm To reach this farmhouse you must drive past a pigsty, corn-crib, henhouse, manure- pile, and clutter of farm tools. A bad approach gives a bad impression of the farmer. Would you enjoy dealing with this man? If you want a better approach, or system of drives, send us a sketch drawn to scale, and we will make suggestions without charge. Consequently, the houses look dark, damp, and gloomy in win- ter, while in summer they look hot and stuffy. (See Fig. 19.) The best thing is to cut out enough of the old trees to give some light and air, and frame a view of the house from the road. (See Fig. 20.) It is natural that we should like to have near us the trees we love best, but nearly all the most popular trees are unfit for framing a view of the home. Take, for instance, those that have showy flowers, like the horse-chestnut, the locust, and the empress tree, or paulownia; they are forever making a litter and should be at a distance from the house. So, too, with the quick-growers, like the box elder, the silver maple, and the Carolina or Lombardy poplar; they go to wreck in storms and their branches fall on the house. Per- haps the most inappropriate is the Norway spruce. Many a house has suffered a depreciation of hundreds of dollars owing to dismal Norway spruces, for they often hasten the decay of a roof by giving too much shade and moisture, to say nothing of making a home look melancholy, instead of joyous. 18. The "Illinois Way" of Approaching a Farmhouse The approach to William Ritchie's farm at Warrensburg, 111., is a double row of black walnut trees, half a century old, lining a drive an eighth of a mile long. The seeds cost nothing and the trees have not required more than one day's work a year for one man. Considering merely their value as timber, these trees would probably show a profit of 1,000 per cent. Have a simple, dignified, permanent approach! The sugar and Norway maples are fine trees, but, like all round-headed trees, they tend to hide the view of a house more quickly than is commonly realized. The ideal tree for framing the view of your house is one that will give enough sunlight and enough shade, enough shelter and enough cooling breeze, to keep a family healthy. The only tree that does all these things to perfection is the American elm not the European. (See Fig. 24.) Moreover, a pair of elms will make a pointed or Gothic arch, suggesting high-roofed cathedrals and God's first temples. Unfortunately, the enemies of the elm are multiplying, and if you plant elms you must be willing to stand the expense of yearly spraying when the time comes. Be sure to specify vase-formed elms. They are the only ones that make the Gothic arch, and are more valuable than the other types or straggling kinds. A pair of oaks (see Fig. 23) will last longer than elms and cost less to maintain. The oaks excel all other trees in nestling close to a house and making it look snug and comfortable. The common idea that oaks are slow-growers and hard to trans- 19. A Poor View from the Road Many farmhouses are hidden by trees, especially soft maples and Norway spruces. The pioneers used to plant forest trees in straight lines around a house for windbreak or shade. Now these tall trees make a house look smaller than it really is; they shade the house too much; they shut out the summer breezes; they make a place damp in winter. 2O. A Good View from the Road This home picture is framed by trees. It will be greatly improved by foundation planting, which will remove the bare look at the base. But just as it is, it gives a favorable first impression to thousands of passers-by. Imagine it surrounded and hidden by maples! Any real-estate dealer will tell you that a good view from the road makes a property more valuable. (Farmhouse near Griggsville, Ijlinois. Photograph by Prof. B. S. Pickett.) Give every passer-by a glimpse of your house not the whole thing, just a glimpse. If your house is hidden, cut out enough trees to frame a view ol the home. 8 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 21. A House Give Your Farmhouse a Background 22. A Home Do not set your house on a bare hilltop, where it is seen only against earth or sky, for it will look new and raw. Set it in front of an orchard or wood, and it will look old and mellow. Make your house blend with the landscape not stand out in gaudy or artificial contrast. (Bailey's "Manual of Gardening.") plant is true only of the white oak. The pin, the scarlet, and the red oaks are easily moved, and will soon overtake maples and other trees that are quicker at the start. They will last for centuries after the "quick-growers" are dead. Plant the trees that you know will make your property more valuable every year. A one-story farmhouse, however, will eventually be dwarfed by tall trees, and look pitifully inadequate. (See Fig. 19.) For small farmhouses it is better to use trees that always remain small, like the flowering dogwood or American hawthorns not the English. Try a pair of these in preference to Magnolia Soulangeana, because they are native. Or try a pair of red cedars, the best exclamation points we can buy to relieve the flatness of the prairie far better than the Lombardy poplar, because evergreen and longer-lived. IMPROVE THE VIEW FROM YOUR PORCH Views have a cash value which is even greater than that of trees. For instance, apartments in New York that face the 23. How to Make the Best View of Your Farmhouse Frame your home picture by planting trees at either end of the house and your property will be more valuable. (Long Island meeting-house shaded by ancient oaks.) Oaks are longer-lived than elms and cost less to maintain. "The oaks excel all other trees in nestling close to a house and making it look snug and comfortable." THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM Hudson rent for about 20 per cent more than those that do not face the Hudson. In the aggregate, the lake views in Chicago make a difference of millions of dollars a year in rents. Every millionaire's country home near Lenox and Stockbridge, Mass., has been bought because of a view. Every farm that faces a river in Illinois has a view, the value of which can be appraised by experts. And the prairie view, which was formerly con- sidered worthless, now has a value that is recognized by the courts. If a man spoils your farm view, it is probable that you can recover damages. Consider, therefore, the view from and to your front porch. (See Figs. 25 to 28.) The ordinary farmer is likely to spoil both these views while really meaning to improve his place. For, when he suddenly awakes to the fact that his farm is bare and ugly, he naturally falls an easy victim to the tree agent with the gaudy colored plates, who tempts him to fill his front yard with showy, foreign, artificial plants. These soon hide the view to and from the front door. Now the farmer has a great advantage over the city man because he can bring into this view the scenery outside his front yard. In the city, everything outside a man's property is likely to be ugly, commonplace, or distracting. The city sights invade his privacy, make his place seem smaller, and imprison him amid artificialities. Conse- quently, a well-bred city man will often plant his boundaries so as to shut out everything beyond his yard. But the farmer can leave open the view to hills, water, church, neighbor's house, or fields. And he can greatly improve these views by planting trees or shrubs near the front porch so as to frame these views. (See Figs. 29 to 32.) HOW TO MAKE FLAT PRAIRIE INTERESTING It is a great mistake to suppose that flat land must be unin- teresting. On the contrary, it is the vast breadth of the prairie and of the sea that makes them such sublime symbols of the Infinite. The peculiar glory of the prairie lies in the vast hori- zontal lines of land, wood, crops, and clouds for even the fleecy or cumulus clouds, though rounded on top, are flat on the bottom. These horizontal lines are fundamental in the new western or prairie school of architecture and landscape gar- dening. (See cover.) Our great opportunity is to repeat this fundamental idea of the prairie in a dozen subtle ways, "like a faint and broken echo," as Ruskin says. The most valuable plants for framing prairie views are the western hawthorns and crab-apples, for their uncountable branches repeat endlessly on a small scale the peculiar beauty of the prairie. That is why our great landscape gardeners, like Simonds and Jensen, have moved thousands upon thou- sands of hawthorns from farm pastures to the estates of million- aires. Rich men will often pay $50 to $60 for a pair of haw- thorns, such as the Illinois farmer can move from his own pasture at no cash outlay. Nursery-grown hawthorns are costly, because slow-growing, and a pair of cockspur thorns 7 feet high costs $16. Why not place a pair of hawthorns beside 24. Why Not Frame the View of Your House with a Pair of Elms? The vase-formed type of American elm is the most beautiful. A pair of vase-formed elms will make a finer arch than this higher, and more pointed, like a cathedral. 10 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM - - 25. This front yard is full of fancy trees and "quick-growers," scattered everywhere to make the biggest show. your front porch or living-room window? They are rather hard to move, and one in four may die, but try again. Two full- grown hawthorns placed just outside your dining-room window may add $100 to the salable value of your property, because they will make your cornfields look twice as beautiful every time you sit down to eat or rest. Be sure to get one with the horizontal branching very pronounced, for some do not have it. Avoid the English hawthorn, which is not adapted to America, and the double red-flowered hawthorns, which are gaudy and artificial compared with our western species, e.g., the cockspur thorn (Cratasgus Crus-galli), the dotted haw (C. punctata), the waxy thorn (C. pruinosa), Eggert's thorn (C. coccmoides), and the parsley haw (C. apiifolia). The pear thorn (C. tomentosa) sometimes has ascending branches, some- times horizontal. Elsewhere in this circular are shown other ways of repeating the prairie lines by means of shrubs and flowers. FOUNDATION PLANTING No money that you can invest in planting will add so much to the salability of your property as money spent to hide the foundations of your house. People commonly plant flowers against foundations, but flowers die down in winter and con- sequently for half the year they cannot hide the foundations. Even at their best, flowers are too weak to harmonize a house The Gaudy Style of Planting Hides the View from the House 26. Here is the beautiful farm view that is completely hidden from the front porch of Fig. 25. Have an open lawn toward the best views of your farm. with nature. It takes shrubs and permanent vines to do that. And it is a big thing to accomplish, for a house without founda- tion planting cannot possibly look at home amid its surround- ings; it looks bare, ugly, uncomfortable. The shrubs must not grow so high as to interfere with the windows, and they must be compact, not sprawling or leggy; for this is the one place on the farm where something like dress parade is desira- ble. For practical suggestions, see Figs. 33 to 40. VINES TO MAKE YOUR PLACE LOOK "DIFFERENT" The costliest and least satisfactory way to make your home look "different" is to load the house with ornamentation. The next poorest bargain is to scatter all over your lawn flashy trees and shrubs, especially the cut-leaved, weeping, and variegated kinds, for this will make your place look just like every beginner's in every city the world over. The best way to put personality and brilliancy and color into home grounds is to have a different set of vines for every house. One place will have Virginia creeper (Fig. 45), trumpet honeysuckle (Fig. 66), and bittersweet (Fig. 47). The next place will have wild grape, wild clematis, and Illinois rose. Both will be beautiful the year round, and neither need cost a cent because you can dig the plants from the open. While you are waiting for the permanent The Gaudy Style also Spoils the View toward the House. 27. This yard is crowded with showy, costly, foreign plants. But the owner will never 28. This yard has an open center, bordered by groups of native trees. If the owner get his money back. For the trees hide the views to and from the house, and the lawn is ever wants to sell, his property will be more salable and the old trees will add considerably reduced to nothing. The gaudy style kills two views with one Colorado blue spruce. to its cash value. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 11 29. We Need "Accent" in Our Prairie Views To an Illinois farmer the most beautiful crop in the world is corn. But people complain that everything about the prairie gets monotonous. They want something different from the universal flatness, especially during the winter. Of course, the prairie is beautiful at sunrise and sunset, but why not all day and every day? vines to grow, you can cover your porch the first year, without spending a cent, by sowing seeds of wild cucumber vine or collecting seeds of morning-glory in regions where it runs wild. In the garden cities of England, such as Bourn ville and Letch- worth, which are the most beautiful of their kind in the world, many thousands of dollars have been saved by building very plain houses, and providing different sets of vines for every house. There is one vine that we should like to see on every porch in the "Prairie State," viz., the Illinois or prairie rose. (See Figs. 41 to 44.) There is little danger of overdoing the matter, because this plant is now available in thirty-nine varieties, having different colors and degrees of fulness. And there is one evergreen vine that ought to be planted on every brick and stone house in America where English ivy is not hardy. This is the evergreen bittersweet (see Fig. 48) not the common climbing euonymous (Euonymus radicans), for that has a taint of variegation, but the round-leaved variety, which the nurserymen call vegetus. It is free trom the 30. The "Illinois Way" of Accenting Prairie Views Your cornfield will look twice as beautiful if seen through a pair of Illinois red cedars jlanted beside your front porch. They will frame not only this view, but the view of your rcouse from the road. They are far superior to Lombardy poplars because they are long- lived and evergreen. They harmonize with the prairie by contrast. The prairie suggests 'infinite breadth. The pointed cedars are full of aspiration. Pi hi weakness and nuisance of producing white leaves, and years before the ordinary type it bears red fruits about the size of holly berries, which are brilliant all winter. THE LAWN It is a fundamental principle of landscape gardening that the open lawn, with shrubbery grouped at the sides (see Fig. 50), is more valuable than a lawn peppered with plants, even if they are rare and costly. (See Fig. 49.) There is no doubt that you can make every dollar stand on edge and scream louder if you scatter plants over your lawn, but you cannot make a beautiful home picture in that way. The gaudy style of planting, which will always appeal strongly to a beginner until the crack of doom, is to scatter over the lawn foreign and artificial kinds of trees and shrubs (see Fig. 51), such as golden-leaved elder, purple-leaved plum, blue Colorado spruce, magenta Anthony Waterer spirea, Kilmarnock weeping wil- low, variegated dogwood, grotesque weeping spruces, shredded 31. Before Framing the View from Your Dining-room The broad, unbroken prairie does not make a picture. No artist would care to paint it. It lacks interest and has no frame. This is not a picture; s~ "~ ' ' ' in. :.. _l L _ I . _l I I I _f _____ .1.1 32. After Framing the View from Your Dining-room Your plowed fields will look twice as beautiful if seen through a pair of Illinois haw- r ; it is merely a photograph. But thorns. They illustrate the law of repetition, one of the ten laws which, as Ruskin tells it shows the bare, cheerless kind of view that depresses many families at their meals, and us in his "Elements of Composition," are fundamental in al! the fine arts. For their makes farmers' wives go insane from loneliness and monotony. Some little portion of your horizontal branches repeat many times, on a small scale, the great horizontal lines of land, big view has warm human interest and beauty. You can frame that and shut out the rest! woods, crops, and clouds, whicn are the peculiar glory of the prairie. 12 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 33. Before Planting against the Foundations See how bare a new house always looks! It is because the foundation is not hidden. There is nothing to soften the hardness of brick and stone nothing to connect architecture and Nature. A farmhouse cannot look at home without foundation planting. soft maples, and those "vegetable exclamation marks" the Lombardy poplars. But this is like gingerbread ornamenta- tion and flashy paint on a house all for show, and without any appropriateness to the country. The better way is to keep the center of the lawn open. (See Fig. 52.) Moreover, the open lawn costs less to maintain, since you can mow it by horse-power, or, at any rate, without forever dodging around trees and bushes. The most artistic things are those which cost the least to maintain in the long run. The worst bargain you can make is to get a "cheap" lawn, for it means yearly worry and expense. It is a popular fal- lacy that the cheapest way to cover ground is to sow it with grass. Shrubs will cover the same area at less cost in the long run, since they are cheaper to maintain. The only true economy in lawn-making is to spare no expense in plowing, preparing, and feeding the soil once for all at the start, instead of spending a lot of money every year of your life for fertilizers and weed-killers. The making of a lawn is usually the most. 34. After Planting against the Foundations Ten dollars will usually supply all the permanent plants needed for this purpose, and $10 spent on foundation planting will go farther than $50 scattered over the lawn. (Mr. Moeller, Dccatur.) expensive item of ornamental planting, but if it is well done it gives the deepest satisfaction of all, for nothing else does so much to make a farmhouse look happy. The lawn is the can- vas on which the home picture is painted. "Lawns and How to Grow Them," by Barren, is a book that may save you its cost many times on fertilizers, labor, and seeds. You can get a free bulletin on lawns by writing to the United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., for Farmers' Bulletin 195. BORDERS ARE BETTER THAN BEDS The best way to decorate your lawn is to have irregular borders of trees and shrubbery at the sides, not flower-beds in the middle. A flower-bed will give you the smallest return from your effort because it is a mud-bank half the year; because the expense must be renewed every season; because it makes the lawn look smaller; and because you have to attend to it during 35. The Most Popular Shrub for Foundation Planting Van Houtte's spirea, famous for its arching stems, lined with flat clusters of white flowers in May. Height about 5 feet. This is the best of the spireas, and should not be con- fused with the bridal wreath, which is a double variety of S. prunifolia. Have one group of Van Houtte's spirea, but do not surround your house with it, as many do. Moreover, the spireas get seedy after blooming, and have no winter value. It is better to have year-round beauty and interest. (H. J. Sconce, Sidell, III.) 36. The Best Shrub for Foundation Planting The Japanese barberry (Berberis Thunbergii) is perfect for a country that cannot have rhododendrons. Its arching stems are beautiful even when leafless. The foliage turns scarlet in autumn and the red berries are attractive all winter. Nearly all other shrubs are bare at the base, but the Japanese barberry hides the ground completely. It grows slowly and usually attains j feet, but may finally reach 5 or 6 feet. Everybody plants these two bushes. If you want something different, there are fifty shrubs native to Illinois. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 13 37-38. The Downy-leaved Arrow-wood for Foundations (Viburnum pubescens) "It bears more flowers than any other viburnum," says Professor Sargent. Blooms in June. The bluish black berries are attractive from August to December. Autumn foliage almost black. This shrub grows about 5 feet high and is native to Illinois. Why not plant these bushes beneath your bedroom window and nave a thousand delicate reminders of the grandeur of the prairie? your rush season, viz., the spring. On the other hand, a good border will give you flowers and beauty the year round; it costs less to maintain; it makes your lawn look twice as beautiful, because it provides a frame; and it has no rush season, since you can plant many of these shrubs with safety in the fall. The main item of work is pruning, and this does not come all at once in early spring, as many people imagine, but is done a little at a time after each species blooms. Thousands of city people spoil their bushes every March by allowing shrub butchers, or fake gardeners, to trim every bush into a ball. 3940. The Maple-leaved Arrow-wood for Foundations (Viburnum acerifolium) This resembles the cranberry tree in having three-fingered leaves, but the berries, instead of red, are bluish black, also the bush is low-growing rarely over 5 feet high. The autumn foliage is bright red. It grows in rather dry woods. Plant a group on the shady side of your house. Farmers of Illinois, why should you buy foreign and artificial shrubs when you can have better ones for nothing? You do not need to be botanists; all you need is to open your eyes to the beauties of common things all about you! * 14 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM The Illinois Rose for Foundation Planting Far better against the house than garden roses. More mpact, freer from insects and diseases, and does well even in poor soil. Flowers July; fruits red until Christmas; stems red all winter; foliage attractive the whole crowing season. Let us plant one Illinois rose in front of every home in Illinois! (See Fig. 53.) Let your bushes grow naturally. (See Fig. 54.) They cost less to care for and look better. To learn about pruning, send to Washington for Farmers' Bulletin 181, which is free. BOUNDARY PLANTING Can't you plant the boundaries of your farmstead in such a way that the same trees and shrubs will do four jobs? First, provide windbreaks; second, screen unsightly objects; third, frame the views from porch and living-room; fourth, provide year-round interest and beauty. 42. The Illinois Rose for Porch Decoration This country home has privacy enough without training the roses uo to hide the porch. The object here is to decorate the porch, and this shows what kind of garland you can make with the Illinois or prairie rose (Rosa setigera) The bushes in the foreground are rhododendrons, which are impractical for Illinois, but we can get a unique effect by replacing them with Illinois roses. Let most of them make compact bushes to hide the foundation, and train a few to make garlands. Why not a whole porch, now and then, planted exclusively or chiefly with Illinois roses? EVERY TREE WORTH ONE DOLLAR A SQUARE INCH The Illinois farmer is often tempted to cut down the big trees in his pasture because they rob his crops of food and moisture. But even if a tree takes $15 a year out of your pockets, is it not worth the money in the enjoyment your family can get out of it, to say nothing of the shade it gives to cattle? The surest way to make your children hate the farm is to cut down a century-old A Deadly Parallel A HEDGE A BORDER oak which they love. According to the Hartford standard, every If so, your property will in- sfcor , seasm 0/ 6eau(y ._ Two weeks Beautiful the year rouna'.-FIowers tree is T>rth $i a square inch crease yearly in value far more than if you merely plant a hedge, especially privet. Loo 43. The Illinois Rose for House Walls It blooms in July, after most of the Ramblers are cone, and lasts nearly three weeks, opening a few flowers daily. 1 he two colors on the same vine are characteristic, th< new blossoms being deep rose and the old ones nearly white. This prairie rose (Rosa setigera) offers a permanent and cheap way of covering broad expanses of common- place or ugly wall. To train it simply tack a piece of cloth over each shoot. This will not rot wood, make a house damp, or shelter dozens of sparrows. When the house needs painting you can lay down the stems and replace them without damage. of bloom or none, and usually no beauty during winter nearly half the year. Little variety. A hedge contains only one kind of plant and ets monotonous. >oks about the same month after month. No new flowers or interest every day. Rush work. Has to be trimmed two or three times a year, often when necessary work is crowding. Artificial. Makes a farmhouse contrast painfully with the surrounding coun- try. Pretentious. Too often it is merely showy, spectacular, stiff, ' 'done for effect," insincere. Costs more in the end. Privet is cheaper at the start, but grows too fast, and there- fore costs more to maintain. from April to October. Brightly colored berries and twigs from October to April. Great variety. Many kinds of shrubs, dif- fering in season of bloom, color and size of flowers, fragrance, height of bush, leaf, autumn color, and fruit. Pleasant work. Prune a little at a time, when the shrubs bloom or after not before, as a rule. More natural. Makes a farmhouse blend with the surround- ing country. simply for shade and beauty. It will pay you to figure the value of the biggest tree in your Self-respecting. Makes a farmhouse look like a country home not a feeble imita- tion of the city. Costs less in the end. No bill for trimming three times a year for the next fifty years. No failures to re- placewith full-grown plants at fancy prices MORAL. Plant informal borders of trees and shrubs at the boundaries oj your property not hedges. 44. Every Illinoisan Should Know the Illinois Rose The Illinois, or prairie rose (Rosa setigera), is a climber with deep rose-colored, single flowers 2' 2 inches across, with 4 to ? flowers in a cluster. It blooms late in June or July, a fortnight after garden roses are gone. It is the hardiest and most adaptable of all roses. The bush grows about 6 fee high. How to know it. It is the only climbing rose nativ to America, and the only wild rose that commonly has thre leaflets. But the surest character is in the pistil. Othe wijd roses have separate styles, like your Fingers, but th Illinois rose has the styles grown together into a column, like your fist. Thirty-nine varieties arc in cultivation. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 15 45. Virginia creeper will keep a porch shady and cool throughout the long, hot summers of the corn-belt. _On brick and stone use Engelmarm's ivy, instead of Japan ivy. It is a self-supporting woodbine. 46. Crimson Rambler Rose at Princeton, 111. Let every house have a different set of vines. It is the best and cheapest way to make a house look "different" better than meaningless ornamentation or gaudy paint. (Home of L. R. Bryant.) See page 10, paragraph on "Vines." lawn or pasture. Measure the circumference of the trunk three feet above ground and reduce to inches. Multiply this cir- cumference by itself and divide by 12.56 (which is 4x3.14), and you will have the area in square inches, or the number of dollars the tree is worth according to the Hartford standard. Doubtless a farm tree will not add so much to the cash value of property as a city tree, but, even if it is worth only half as much, a tree six feet in circumference is worth 206.37 for beauty alone. Make an inventory of your most valuable trees and, if you sell any or all of your farm, see that you get their value ! Surely, when you realize the value of old trees, you will not let them die of neglect ! (See Figs. 57 and 58.) PLANT PERMANENT TREES NOT "QUICK-GROWERS" We ought to be ashamed to plant only "quick-growers," for they are merely temporary. The pioneers had a legitimate excuse for planting box elder, silver maple, and poplars, for they needed windbreaks without delay. But quick-growers are nearly always a bad bargain; they are soft- wooded, and therefore easily broken by storms, after which they fall an easy prey to insects and diseases. Quick-growers are the cheapest at the start, but the dearest in the end, because they cost more to maintain. Just when you need them most they fail you, and the cost of cutting down big trees is very heavy. The pin, the red, and the scarlet oaks will overtake most of these quick- growers in twenty years, and they will last for centuries after the quick-growers are dead. Temporary trees get less valuable every year after they reach a good size, while permanent trees grow more valuable. (See Figs. 59 and 60.) If you want the greatest increase of value for your property, plant permanent trees, like the tulip tree, the sugar maple, the sweet gum, the white ash, and, above all, the oaks. Quick growers often kill sales of property because prospective purchasers are getting to hate temporary trees. In Cleveland, it is against the law to plant poplars. Can't you solve your shade problem without them, e.g., by means of a screened porch or summer-house? 47. The deciduous bittersweet (Celastrus scandens), a twiner with red berries which are attractive all winter. Native to Illinois. This one vine, planted by the million, would change Illinois from an ugly country in winter to a beautiful one. Who will do it? 48. The evergreen bittersweet (Euonymus radicans), the only hardy evergreen climber. It succeeds where English ivy fails. The best variety is vegctus, which saves years of waiting for the red berries that are attractive all winter. Grow it on stone or brick not wood. 16 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 49. The Gaudy Style of Lawn Costs More to Maintain To say nothing of its bad taste! It takes more hand work to cut the grass around It can be mowed by horse-power, and in the country mowing need not be do flower-beds and specimen plants that are scattered over the lawn. The most expensive often as in the city. The open lawn is simpler, more dignified, more restful, and 50. The Open Lawn Costs Less to Maintain It can be mowed by horse-power, and in the country mowing need not be done so item in gardening is labor. FLOWER-GARDENS THAT REALLY FIT THE ILLINOIS FARM The kind of flower-garden for which every farmer's wife secretly yearns is the kind her great-grandmother had the Colonial garden, with box-edged beds filled with roses and annual flowers. (See Fig. 61.) The boxwood is not hardy in Illinois, and comparatively few large, double roses are thor- oughly satisfactory here. The farmer's wife cannot find an hour a day for her flowers, and she cannot find anyone to spade a flower-garden in the spring. But there are certain fundamen- tal needs which people always have felt for flowers, and always must gratify. The heart cries out for these things, and the cry cannot be stifled. These fundamental flower needs are about eight in number: (i) Every mother wants to grow the famous old flowers that everybody has always known and loved. (2) Every woman that ever lived wants cut-flowers in her house. (3) Every family has some member that loves birds, and wishes to bring their song, flight, and color nearer to the house. (4) All parents want their children to learn independence, and to love the country and wish to stay there. (5) Every civilized being needs a chance to get back to nature some playground, picnic spot, or bit of wildness. (6) Every dweller on the prairie knows that about half the year is leafless, and dumbly feels the need of winter comfort and cheer. (7) Every farmer has at least a rudimentary admiration for old trees and other things that grow more precious every year. (8) Every citizen of Illinois is proud of his state, takes an interest in his state flower, and is glad of every chance to show an honest state pride based upon real achievements. Now let com moi repose 51. The Gaudy Way of Using "Horticultural Varieties" Horticultural varieties are cut-leaved, weeping, and variegated trees and shrubs. The nmon way is to scatter ^them over a lawn. This system makes the biggest show for the >ney, but it spoils the view of house and lawn and destroys all simplicity, dignity, and tose. Here we have weeping beech, weeping elm, and purple maples. These particular .pics are comparatively mild because they turn green in summer. The worst offenders against good taste are purple barberry, purple plum (Prunus Pissardi), and golden cider. appropriate to the country. Without it you cannot frame a good view of your home. us see how all these fundamental needs can be satisfied by up-to-date flower-gardens that are not total misfits, like the Colonial garden, but are really adapted to the Illinois climate, soil, labor, and farm life. 1. A Flower-Garden for the Illinois Farmer's Wife We believe that it is impractical for the farmer's wife to have a separate flower-garden at the present time. But she can make her whole place a garden by planning to beautify her farm in the "Illinois way." She will have all the flowers she most de- sires, but they will not be in a separate garden; each will be in the place where it is most needed and can be cared for at the least expense. For example, her lilacs, sweet shrub, weigela, golden bells, and Tartarian honeysuckle will not be in the garden, but in the borders of the lawn. Her mock orange may hide the outbuildings. Her spirea, deutzia, and barberry will not be in a neglected garden, but against the 52. The "Illinois Way" of Using Horticultural Varieties Here are fancy varieties enough for anyone. They constitute less than $ percent of the planting, yet beginners often use 95 per cent fancy material. The "Illinois way" is to have 05 per cent of the planting composed of trees and shrubs native to Illinois. (Signed) Wm. C. Egan, Highland Park, HI. This is the most famous one-acre place in the West. It has been visitea by thousands of home-builders and has persuaded many to have open- centered lawns, with massed planting at the sides. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 17 53. The Wrong Way of Treating a Border 54. The "Illinois Way" of Treating a Border "Every spring, millions of bushes are ruined by 'fake gardeners/ whose only idea of Allow every shrub to develop to the utmost its peculiar beauty. The most flowers are 'pruning* is to trim every bush into a ball." (See page 13.) By this system they rob you borne on young wood not old; therefore, cut out some old stems every year right to the of many flowers, and make_ all shrubs look alike. Do not let these ignoramuses trim your ground. Prune after flowering not before. Try this system. Get a pair of shears and do ny flowers, l elms into balls. (From Bailey's "Manual of Gardening.") foundations of her house. Her perennial flowers, such as iris, peony, phlox, and chrysanthemum will not perish of thirst in a distant garden, but bloom beneath the kitchen window, where they can be watered with the least effort. And her fa- vorite annuals, such as asters, calliopsis, cosmos, marigold, mignonette, petunias, snapdragons, stocks, verbenas, and zin- nias will no longer be raised by the pottering, back-breaking method of seed-bed and transplanting, but will be sown in long rows, like vegetables, and cultivated by the horses on their way to the fields. Some of the old sentiment will be gone, but she will . have more flowers at less cost, by growing them in simple, wholesale ways. 2. More Cut-Flowers at Less Cost We have just indicated how this can be accomplished with the famous old garden flowers. Another way is to cut three- or four-foot sprays of flowering shrubs, bring them into the house, and stand them in umbrella jars. In- deed, the best way to prune shrubs, according to some gardeners, is to prune them while they are in bloom. It would mar a flower-garden to re- move these long sprays, but in an informal border on the lawn they never will be missed. A third way to have plenty of cut-flow- ers without cost is to gather the com- mon roadside flow- ers and weeds, e.g., the queen's lace handkerchief, yar- row, bouncing bet, sunflower (Fig. 62), brown-eyed susan, goldenrod, and asters. The com- a little at a time. No rush season. (Henry M. Dunlap, Savoy, III.) mon flowers of the fields, such as red and crimson clover, ought to be brought into the house; it is not enough to see them outdoors. Try it and be convinced. And do not buy any fancy vases loaded with ornament or made of many strong colors. It is a waste of money, for flowers will not look well in such things. Use simple jugs and jars whatever you have. 3. Children's Gardens That Will Make Strong Characters Eight Iowa children who helped one another through col- lege began their financial career by cultivating a strawberry bed. Why not start your children in business this spring with a dollar's worth of gladiolus bulbs? (See Fig. 63.) They can sell the flowers without harming the bulbs, and by August they will be able to pay you back and buy something they desire very much. It may lead to a great business in the coun- try, like that of a man in Berlin, N. Y., who has seventy acres of gladioli. (See Fig. 64.) The peony is another plant that gives two crops flowers and roots. A single row of peonies culti- vated with a wheel hoe by your boy may change hatred of the farm into love of it, and create a fine busi- ness, like that of a peony specialist in Pennsylvania. The farmers near Har- risburg, Pa., bring to market iris, peonies, garden pinks, lilacs, gla- dioli, dahlias, hy- drangeas, and china asters. It is pin- money for the wife, to say nothing of the pleasure. I n Winnebago County children learn to grow flow- ers at school, and other farm 55-56. The Nannyberry for Boundary Planting (Viburnum Lentago) Everyone likes these sweet berries, that turn dark blue or black in September and remain all winter. All summer it is a joy to watch the berries change color, and the scarlet stalks make a vivid foil. The bloom comes in May and the clusters are often 5 inches across. In autumn the foliage turns to deep orange. It is native to Illinois. This big bush gro" s 20 feet high or more. Plant nannyberries to mark the boundaries of your yard, screen unsightly objects, feed the birds, provide winter beauty, and repeat the prairie lines with their flat flower-clusters. At one time you may see green, pink, and blue berries all in the same cluster. See page 14, paragraph "Boundary Planting." \ 18 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 57. A Shameful Way to Treat Old Trees This grand old tree has died of neglect. A few years ago it might have been saved by $10 worth of tree surgery. See page 14, "Every Tree Worth One Dollar a Square Inch. 58. The "Illinois Way" of Honoring Old Trees A magnificent tree preserved by Dr. Schenck. A little tree surgery now may save a tree in farmstead or field which will add $100 to $500 to the cash value of your farm. 59. Elms Worth $1,000 a Pair "I bought and built here six years ago because of the two street trees in front, paying $650 more Tor this lot than for any of the treeless lots a block away which I bought for invest- ment. Last week I sold one of these treeless lots for $1,500. If that lot were in the block where I live I could easily sell it for $3,000. Hence, I conclude that every pair of big elms on Oregon Street adds about $1,500 to the value of each lot or let us say conservatively $1,000. Fifty-five years ago, when planted, a pair of these elms was worth $i. If that dollar had been put into a savings bank it would have earned $4.43 in half a century at 3 per cent compound interest. Put into the bank of earth.it actually earned at the rate of 20% a year, simple interest, or 1,000% in 50 years." (Signed) James W. Garner, Urbana, III., June 30, 1913. Plant permanent trees now so that you and your heirs will reap some of this great profit! 60. The Great Hale Oak, "Worth a Million or More*' " "Most every day of my life I take my hat off to this tree. 1 his is my way of tree worship. When my ancestors bought this farm in 1642, this tree was ollicially called 'the great oak." It may be one thousand years old; experts say it is over eight hundred. It is 95 feet high. has a spread of 121 feet, and is 19 feet 6 inches in circumference. I would not sell it for a million dollars, or any money no matter how great a sum. It stands on private property in front of my office, close up to the edge of Glastonbury's main highway. When in the Legislature I drafted and helped pass a law that will preserve roadside trees all over our state. If this oak ever needs surgery it will get it, but at present it is perfectly sound and H_ _ _" ___. ._ off, gentlemen! Long life to the old Hale oak!" (Signed) . Hale, Fruit-grower, South Glastonbury, Conn. See page 14, paragraph entitled "Every Tree Worth One Dollar a Square Inch. ' healthy in body and limb. Hats ofl John H. Ha' " 61. The Kind of Flower-garden That Does Not Fit Illinois The Colonial garden is good to-drcam about, but box is not hardy, and few large double roses are everywhere satisfactory. Labor is too scarce to make the separate flower-garden a success on the ordinary prairie farm. For appropriate kinds, see page 17. 62. How the Farmer's Wife Can Get Flowers for Nothing Send the children to the roadside, fields, and woods for wild flowers, and have them on the table every week throughout the season. For a list see page 17, near bottom. Use simple, inexpensive vases not fancy forms and colors. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 19 63. A Children's Garden That Is Practical on Illinois Farms Why not start your boy in business with a dollar's worth of gladiolus bulbs? He can sell the flowers without harming the bulbs. Seep. 17, paragraph on "Children's Gardens." children who are not so fortunate may get (at the cost of a postal card) full directions for growing flowers, by writing to the U. S. Department of Agriculture for Farmers' Bulletin 195. Won't you help your children start a flower-garden that will make for independence, profit, and love of country? Help them make a sign that will make people stop and buy; e.g., CUT-FLOWERS FOR SALE CHEAP RAISED BY ILLINOIS CHILDREN 5 Cents a Handful 25 Cents a Basketful 50 Cents an Armful 4. Bird-Gardens for Illinois Farmers Restore the song birds to Illinois farms! Experts estimate that certain birds save American farmers $400,000,000 a year, 64. What the Children's Garden May Lead To A seventy-acre gladiolus farm like Cowee's, or a ten-acre peony farm, like Farr's. It may change natre'd of the country into love of farming. because they keep down insects that will damage the crops. Everyone can bring the birds into his daily life by planting shrubbery at the edge of his lawn. You can make more money by planting a mulberry hedge around your cherry orchard than you can by shooting robins, for the birds will leave cher- ries to eat mulberries. Dwarf juneberries will do the same trick. You make only 5 per cent from your woodlot now; you can double this if you will put up some of the new scientific bird-houses which attract woodpeckers, the greatest enemies of wood-destroying insects, and therefore the greatest friends of the forest. You can have squabs to eat if you will let the children raise pigeons, and these pigeons can be housed-m such a way as to beautify your barn instead of making a mess of it. In these and other ways birds are profitable, to say noth- ing of their song, color, and beauty. A new kind of bird-garden that is full of western character has been designed by Jens Jensen for Mrs. Julius Rosenwald and Mrs. Albert H. Loeb. (See Figs. 65 and 109.) Although in Chicago, the Loeb garden attracts martins, wrens, and 65. The Rosenwald Bird-Garden in Chicago Every handy farm boy can make a martin house like this, with a cat-guard below. The creeper in Fig. 66 can be had for nothing in southern Illinois or from any nurseryman for twenty-five cents. 66. Every Woman Can Have a Bird-Garden Plant trumpet creeper and the humming-birds will come close to you while you sit on the porch and sew. 20 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 67. Save These Illinois Flowers from Extermination American bluebell, or Virginia cowslip, the finest blue flower of spring once abundant in Illinois. Loves low meadows and streams. It means more to us than Scotch or English bluebells. Let us restore American bluebells to American woods! robins. A dancing spring furnishes them with water for drink- ing and bathing; a food-house shelters them during winter storms; and the flowering shrubs produce edible berries the year round. Best of all, the garden is full of state pride, 68. A Woodlot without Wild Flowers Spoiled by Cows Why not fence a portion for the family picnic-ground and wild garden? Restore the flowers shown on this page, and others by the methods described on page 22. in the sec- tion on "Wild Gardens lor Illinois Farmers." for practically every tree and shrub is native to Cook County. The bird-garden seems destined to spread quickly all over America, for it probably gives more for the money than any 69. A Woodlot Full of Wild Flowers No Cows The wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) once carpeted the woodlands of Illinois and tens of thousands of their thrilling blue flowers could be seen in May. They will come back and stay, if you will spend $2 for enough three-strand wire to inclose an acre. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 21 70. Flowers for a Century at no Cost 71. Restore the Illinois Rose to Illinois Woods! In full sunshine the Illinois rose is a compact bush, but in the woods it is a picturesque vine mystic, wonderful. See how it flows, like water, over obstacles! It throws a mantle of charity over new stumps, bare earth, and all unsighthness. Every Illinois farmer can enjoy the Illinois rose the year round without cost in his woodland pasture. Let the children plant them this fall in woodlot or meadow. In a few years gather the fruits and bury them at the edge of the woods, where they will restore charm to the woodland by obliterating you will be planting by the thousand for pleasure. the "browsing line" made by cattle. Let us plant Illinois roses along every trail in every piece of woods in Illinois! These daffodils have bloomed without care, on a farm, for over one hundred years! Every Illinois farmer can afford to invest $i in fifty daffodil bulbs. Let your children type of garden yet invented, and it can be adapted to any climate, soil, or purse. For instance, at no cost, the farmer's wife can put a shallow pan of water on a post near her kitchen window and watch the bluebirds and song sparrows spatter the water, while she peels the potatoes. Twenty-five cents will give her a trumpet creeper on the porch (see Fig. 66), 72. Wild Gardening in the Meadow No use to cry "millionaire" or "eastern." Every farm can have this for $10. The bulbs of poet's narcissus cost less than one cent each. Invest $10 this fall and get 1,000 fragrant white flowers next May. They will multiply without care and never harm your hay-crop. Plant with a dibble when the ground is soft. 22 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 73. Japanese Barberry (Berberis Thunbergii) 74. Common Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) Why not have a winter garden of shrubs with brightly colored berries or twigs which will make your place look cheer- ful the year round instead of cold and bare? For $3 to $5 you can get a dozen kinds. You can propagate enough to trans- form your property. See page 23, paragraph entitled "Winter Gardens for Illinois Farmers." to bring the hummingbirds within six feet of her knitting. Southward, trumpet vine can be had for nothing from the fence-rows. Five cents' worth of gourd seed will keep the child- ren out of mischief, and make houses that will bring wrens to the porch. A simple martin house, such as handy boys can make, will do something to keep down malarial mosquitos and typhoid flies. (See Fig. 65.) But the old ways of attracting friendly birds are not good enough. The ordinary bird-house made by children leads only to a tragedy, for the cats get the young birds. There must be cat guards. And there is a new type of bird-house to perfect which a German has spent thirty thousand dollars and thirty years. To find out all about it, write to the National Associa- tion of Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, N. Y. Send them fifty cents for the best book; viz., "How to Attract and Protect the Wild Birds," by Hiesemann, and ask for the names of manufacturers of scientific bird-houses. Write also to the U. S. Department of Agriculture for reprints entitled "Does it Pay the Farmer to Attract Birds?" and "Plants Useful to Attract Birds and Protect Fruit." 5. Wild Gardens for Illinois Farmers Old-style flower-gardening is not a sensible occupation for overworked farmers. But there are three new propositions that are practical for Illinois farmers because they can pay back their cost in real values, they have no rush season, and they involve no pottering with seeds. The first is to fence a portion of the woodlot, and make it a playground, picnic spot, and wild garden. The average wood- lot has some beauty, but not enough, because the cows destroy the low branches of the trees and the wild flowers. (See Fig. 68.) Keep the cows out and the charm will come back; shrubs will grow up around the edges, so that it will no longer be possible to look right through the woods. And you do not need to plant the wild flowers; the birds will bring the seeds. In four years the ground will be carpeted again with hepaticas, bloodroot, tril- liums, wild blue phlox (see Fig. 69), American bluebells (see Fig. 67), shooting stars, wood asters, and many more. The farmer himself need do nothing but build the fence, and the only loss will be a bit of pasturage, say ten rods square. The trees in the new wild garden will continue to grow more valu- able every year for timber. Think of the corn-roasts and holi- day celebrations in such a spot! Isn't it better than a hot, dusty day at a distant "amusement park"? For every hundred flowers that you can raise by seed- sowing you can have a thousand by using the axe. Cut out all the crooked and spindling trees in woods like Fig. 69, and give the largest and most permanent trees a chance to develop to the utmost. Don't do this all at once, or you will let in too much light and kill the big trees by "sunscald." Distribute your cutting over four years, and aim to let in enough light to encourage wild flowers but not enough to encourage grass. That is the way to carpet the ground with acres of wild flowers, ten thousand of a kind in a single colony. 75. The Sort of Winter Garden Any Farmer Can Have Every countryman has one great advantage over the city man because he can grow evergreens. Evergreens are sure to die in the smoky air of cities, but in the country, they add to the value of a place every year, because they are beautiful the year round ftnd make a better background for flowers and autumn colors than deciduous trees. Planted singly on the prairies they are likely to die, but in thick groups, behind shelter-belts, they are likely to succeed. See page 23, paragraph on "Winter Gardens." j6. The Illinois Rose for Your Shrubbery Border Garden roses, i.e. the large, double-flowered varieties, cannot thrive permanently in a shrubbery border, and they look out of place. On the border of your lawn you want the Illinois or prairie rose (Rosa setigera). In the rough and tumble of a hardy border the Illinois rose can usually hold its own against foreign shrubs and weeds. And it arches over so as to connect lawn and shrubbery. Nurserymen of Illinois will you specify one group of Illinois rose in every border you plan or plant in this state? See page 26. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 23 77. High Bush Cranberry in Flower (Viburnum Opulus) 78. High Bush Cranberry in Fruit One of the most valuable shrubs for year-round beauty. It blooms in May. The large showy flowers are sterile; the inner ones make fruits. The autumn foliage is bright red, and the scarlet berries are attractive all winter, as they are not eaten by birds. Many people now prefer this to the snowball because of its fruits. It is not troubled by plant-lice as the snowball is. This shrub is native to Illinois and can be easily told by the maple-like, or three-fingered leaves. In the meadow, too, it is perfectly practicable to have daffo- dils and poet's narcissus by the thousand, as English farmers do. These fragrant yellow-and-white flowers bloom in April and May, and do not interfere with the hay crop. You can mow the hay at the regular time without hurting next year's crop of flowers, for the daffodil leaves turn yellow and fall while the bulbs are ripening for next year. There is an old field near Trenton, N. J., where daffodils have multiplied without care for over a hundred years. (See Fig. 70.) Daffodil bulbs cost only two or three dollars per hundred, which is two or three cents apiece. If you like, you can get your money back in six months, for you can cut and sell three dollars' worth of flowers without harming the bulbs. But you won't want to. You will prefer to enjoy the flowers in the meadow. The bulbs of the poet's narcissus (see Fig. 72) cost only half a cent apiece, and five dollars invested this fall will give you a thousand flowers next May. Why not buy some of the bulbs this fall and make a trial? 6. Winter Gardens for Illinois Farmers You can make an outdoor winter garden for $3 to $5 that will pay back its cost in cash in two years, to say nothing of the pleasure it will give you. Get a dozen kinds of shrubs with brightly colored twigs, such as the red-stemmed Illinois rose; the red, purple, and yellow dogwoods; the salmon, blue, and golden willows; the green forsythia, kerria, and memorial rose; and they will give you a fine show of color the very day you plant them in the fall or early spring. Take orders for them, if you like, as a certain farmer in Dixon does. Any nurseryman will be glad to give you a commission, and your winter garden will pay its own cost. 79-80. The Silky Dogwood for Your "Illinois Border" This shrub (Cornus Amomum or sericea) is famous for its winter beauty, the purplish red branches being second in vividness only to the Siberian red dogwood. I he bush grows 3 to 10 feet high and blooms in June or July, about a month later than the Siberian. The berries are pale blue, sometimes bluish white. Native to Illinois. Plant silky dogwoods near your house, in your lx>rder, bird-garden, or winter garden, and enjoy their gorgeous color every sunny day from November to March. See page 26, first paragraph. 24 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 81. Coneflowers as They Grow Beside Illinois Roads The most peculiar plants of Illinois are the prairie flowers, and the most characteristic family is the Compositae, includ- ing compass plant, sunflowers, gaillardia, perennial asters, sneezewccd, bpltonia, goldcnrods, brown-eyed susans, the pur- ple, pink, and yellow coneflowcrs. The secret charm of all these flowers is that each is a miniature edition of the prairie. flow Why not have a "prairie garden" composed largely of these flowers and those mentioned on page 26? Let us make a The refuge for these disappearing flowers a border of pjairie flowers in every Illinois homel 82 Coneflowers in an Eastern Garden This shows that the millionaires cultivate what we have been taught to ignore or despise. Many of our prairie flowers have found their way into the gardens of the world. They will look better here than in any other country, when every Illinois home has an Illinois border. 83. Shall We Yield to the East in Appreciating Beauty? Look at these Illinois or prairie roses planted along an eastern drive, covering raw banks more cheaply than grass, and edging the road to the exclusion of weeds! Is there beauty here, or can we see beauty only in bedding plants? Are we so uncultured that we can enjoy only rare, costly, showy, foreign, artificial things nothing simple, natural, common? We have nearly exterminated our unique prairie flowers; let us bring them back to every Illinois home! We have blindly copied the rest of the world, bestrewing our fair lawns with stars of cpleus and circles of cannas; let us have a style of our own! Let us know and love every wild plant within a mile of our homes, discover its peculiar beauty, and cudgel our imagi- nations for nobler ways of using the Illinois trees, shrubs, and flowers! THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 25 The next step is to invest $5 in a dozen kinds of shrubs that have berries which are attractive all winter. Get first high bush cranberry (see Figs. 77 and 78), the Japanese and common barberries (see Figs. 73 and 74), and the multillora rose, because its berries are red, and red is the warmest color against the snow. You can also enjoy all winter the black ber- ries of Regel's privet, the blue berries of the white fringe, the red hips of the Scotch rose, and the scarlet berries of the Ameri- can, Japanese, and evergreen bittersweets. The fruits of the rugosa rose, winterberry, and mountain ash will be attractive until New Year's. Every farmer can enjoy a winter garden of evergreens such as no millionaire in any western city can have because of soft- coal smoke. (See Fig. 75.) Plant evergreens for windbreaks and screens, and the beauty will take care of itself. At present, America is one of the bleakest and ugliest countries in the world for nearly half the year. But Illinois can become famous for its winter beauty if we all set to work planting permanent native material. We never can do so well as England with evergreens, but we can improve conditions by planting ever- greens in large groups instead of singly. And we can work out a new type of winter beauty with the aid of western mate- rials, especially hawthorns, crab apples, and shrubs with brightly colored berries or twigs. 7. A Tree- Garden, or Arboretum One of the most interesting gardens in Illinois is the tree- garden, or arboretum, of Mr. L. R. Bryant, a farmer at Prince- ton. (Sea Fig. 84.) An arboretum is a time-honored farmer's hobby that is worthy of a real man, for at least three Penn- sylvania farmers had famous tree-gardens John Bartram, John Evans, and the Painter brothers. It would be folly now for any farmer to try to grow all the hardy trees in the world, for even the Arnold Arboretum cannot do that on three hun- dred acres. Let the millionaires waste their money in trying to grow plants of hostile climates, such as those of Europe and the Pacific Coast. It is not even practical to grow all the trees of allied climates; viz., those of China, Japan, and Korea. The most profitable scheme for the Illinois farmer is to collect only the trees of Illinois. Assemble these near a house-site that you may be willing to sell twenty-five years from now, and some 84. A "Tree-garden" Is a Hobby Worthy of a Real Man Bartram. Evans, Painter and others increased the values of their farms by their tree- gardens. (Arboretum of Mr. L. R. Bryant, Princeton, Illinois.) The best scheme is a collection of Illinois trees and shrubs. day there will come down the road a millionaire city man who wants a country home and cannot wait a quarter of a century for trees to grow. Then is the time to get your pay for all you have spent on your collection of Illinois trees. Your white pine, short-leaf pine, arborvitae, red cedar, and juniper will look mighty good to a millionaire who wants some- thing that is longer-lived than cheap Scotch pine and dismal Norway spruce. What buyer can resist your butternut, pecan, shagbark hickory, hornbeam, ironwood, sweet birch, Ameri- can beech, pin oak, red oak, scarlet oak, black oak, shingle oak, white oak, bur oak, American elm, hackberry, red mul- berry, tulip tree, papaw, sassafras, sweet gum, sycamore, prairie crab, service-berry, pear thorn, long-spine thorn, wild plum, choke cherry, red bud, coffee tree, honey locust, wafer ash, wahoo, sugar maple, red maple, buckeye, yellow buckthorn, basswood, Hercules' club, flowering dogwood, sour gum, per- simmon, silver bell, white ash, western catalpa, and black haw ? Surely this is a gorgeous list, which would be irresistible to- a Chicago buyer, and also to your children, some of whom will not care to leave a farm with an Illinois arboretum on it! 5. Children, Is This Your Ideal? Are you content to live in this way? Or do you want a permanent country home? Do you wish to become Wall Street millionaires and live the feverish life of a big, artificial city? Or do you think that the finest way to live is to have a permanent country home. Why not a race of real American country gentlemen not mere city folks who spend summers on extravagant country estates? (See page 26.) 86. The Illinois Type of Country Gentleman This house was built from honest profits made by raising corn on this very farm not money made in a great city by Wall Street methods of fleecing widows and orphans. The owner is not an absentee landlord, skinning his land and his tenants, but a real farmer. He is not a mere summer resident, but lives in the country the year round. (Harvey J- Sconce, Sidell, III.) Give us more real American country gentlemen! ' 26 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 87-88. Trees Will Make Your Place More Salable! "This house cost no more than the other and was better in some important ways, but it had no trees in the yard. We wanted our children to have a shady playground before they grew up. So 8. Every Home Should Have an "Illinois Border" Mr. J. Horace McFarland, of Harrisburg, Pa., has a "dead line" on his home grounds beyond which no plant is tolerated that is not a native of Pennsylvania. Nothing will add more to an honest state pride than a border of Illinois shrubs on every farm lawn. In April you can have the bloom of red bud; in May, the arrow-wood and sheepberry; in June, the prairie rose, high bush cranberry, lead plant, and false indigo; in July, but- tonbush and arborescent hydrangea; in August, the shining and staghorn sumachs and Hercules' club; in September, witch- hazel; while all winter you can enjoy the red berries of the high bush cranberry and the red stems of the Illinois rose. While the shrubs are getting their growth, why not fill some of the spaces between them with famous prairie flowers that 89. Our New Winter View 90. Our Old Winter View When our family grew too large for the house that we sold to the Picketts we had to move to a big lot that was tcly bare. 1 he contrast was so painful that we would gladly have paid $3,000 in cold cash if we could have moved all reis and shrubs. To reproduce as nearly as possible what had been planted before our time would have cost $1,200. "When absol those To mo' yej something nowl We bought this house and have never regretted it. The original cost of plans and planting was about $30, and the trees saved us twelve to seventeen years of waiting." (Signed) Mr. and Mrs. B. S. Pickett, Urbana, III. have found their way into the gardens of the world? In spring you can have the prairie violet, sharp-leaved beard tongue, purple poppy-mallow. In summer will bloom the gaillardias, long-headed and purple concflower, rough ox-eye, mealy sage, compass and cup plants, and Pitcher's sage. In autumn you can have the showy linear-leaved sunflowers, the gray-hended coneflower, the Kansas gay feather, and Stokes' aster. You need not rob Nature or waste precious time in hunting Illinois flowers, for practically every plant mentioned in this circular can be bought from nurserymen; and nursery-grown plants usually give better results than collected stock because they are better prepared to stand the shock of transplanting. If you cannot appreciate the beauty of common wild flowers, see Figs. 81 and 82, and read "The Religion of the Prairie" on inside back cover. THE CHILDREN'S IDEAL A PERMANENT COUNTRY HOME What do the children on Illinois farms most desire? Do you wish to become Wall Street millionaires, and live the feverish life of a great arti- ficial city? Or do you think that the finest way to live is to have a perma- nent country home? The highest type of life yet invented, in the opinion of many, is that of the English squire at his best. All over this world there are younger sons who are working to realize just one ideal to go back to, England and make a permanent home, not in London, but in the coun- try. Why not a race of real Ameri- can country gentlemen, not mere city folks who spend summers on extrava- gant country estates? Already we have them in New England. Witness the four Thayer places at Lancaster, Mass.; also dozens of southern homes. Col. F. O. Lowden, of Oregon, Illinois, lives in the country the year round, and boasts that he makes his farm pay. Mr. Henry M. Dunlap, of Savoy, and Mr. Harvey J. Sconce, of Sidell, THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 27 91. Before Landlord and Tenant Become Friends Bad for both, bad for the land, and bad for future generations. We need a better system of tenantry, at least as good as that of northern Italy. And it must grow out of the "Illinois system of permanent agriculture." are real Illinois country gentlemen who have permanent homes and well-planted grounds, and these improvements have come out of Illinois farms, not city speculation. Is the rising genera- tion willing to live in the cramped, cheerless, citified farmhouses and bare grounds of today (see Fig. 86), or do the children aim at something more permanent, comfortable, and fitting? WHAT YOU CAN GET FOR NOTHING The best ornamental plants that any Illinois farmer can use may be had for the cost of digging; viz., Illinois trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers. Dig only where there are too many plants for their own good. Do not rob the public. Ask permission of private owners, and do not be greedy. Can't you find within ten miles of your home all the plants shown in Fig. 110? Beginning at the upper left corner, they are: Flowering dog- wood to frame the view of your house; American bluebells, to restore charm to your woods; white pines, to make a digni- 92. After Landlord and Tenant Become Friends The landlord supplies the paint; the tenant the labor. The landlord gives a dollar's worth of seeds; the tenant raises the flowers. T he landlord opens his eyes to native beauty; the tenant digs vines from the woods. Both arc richer, happier, better. Time one year. A Few Trees 93. What You Can Get for the Price of a Hog Here are two Illinois farms which prove that a few trees make all the difference between a house and a home a place to work and a place to live. These trees cost originally about $17 to $22. 1 hey were planted without any plan or reason but they are better than nothing because trees increase in value every year. Plant some trees now. Sell a hog and have some beauty! 94. Unplanted Street in Somerville, Mass. "This street and the next were built by the same real-estate dealers. The houses are a 1 exactly alike, but those on the implanted street rent for $300 a year while those on the e, s e proi e , planted street rent for $420. The renters gladly pay the 40 per cent more for the privilege yiejds him a net profit of $330, which is 57 per cent more than on the Unplanted street ol living on the planted street. The beautiful street actually cost less than this ugly one. This is unanswerable proof of the cash profit in planning streets and planting trees." became the curbstone on this street, which is unnecessary, cost more than all the trees and (Signed) Loring Underwood, Landscape Architect, lioston. shrubs on ihe planted street." 95. Planted Street in Somerville, Mass. "Assuming the cost of each house as $3,000 and the landlord's yearly expenses as 3 per cent, his net profit is $210 a year from each implanted house, while each planted house 28 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM fied approach; high bush cranberry for red berries against the snow all winter; Virginia creeper for the porch; sumach to screen an outbuilding; the old tree in the field to leave for the children; elders for your bird-garden; a tulip tree to make a background for the house; red cedars for windbreaks; Illinois rose for your Illinois border, and high bush cranberry to repeat the prairie lines and make the "religion of the prairie" a joy. WHAT YOU CAN GET FOR TEN DOLLARS For $10 you can accomplish any one of the following things: You can buy fifty white pines and fifty hemlocks a foot high, which will some day shelter house and barn from the wind and screen the outbuildings. You can buy four elms, 8 to 10 feet high, to frame the view of your house, front and back, and a pair of hawthorns, 5 or 6 feet high, to frame the view of the prairie from your porch. You can get twenty Japanese barberries 2 feet high, to plant against the foundations of your house, or twelve vines, all different, to give your house character and year-round interest, and twenty-four more to transform the outbuildings from ugliness to beauty. You can plant enough mulberry hedge to save your fruit from troublesome birds and encourage desirable birds. You can start the children in the cut-flower business, with ten different kinds of perennials, one for each week of vaca- tion. Thus each week they will have ten clumps from which to cut and sell flowers. You can have a bird-garden composed of twenty to forty different kinds of shrubs with edible berries. You can have a winter garden composed of twenty-four kinds of shrubs, with twigs that are attractive from October to March. You can have an Illinois border, containing eight kinds of shrubs, with a dozen of each kind in a group. You cannot make a big profit if you merely sit down with a catalogue and order $10 worth of miscellaneous plants you happen to know and like, and then scatter them aimlessly about. But it is wonderful what you can accomplish with $10 if you have any kind of a plan. Have you $10 worth of love for your home? If 10,000 of us will spend $10 each this year, on planting, what a wonder- ful improvement that $100,000 will make in the appearance of Illinois! And how much your $10 will add to the happiness of your family! Why not save $10 on luxuries, and invest it in planting for home happiness? WHAT YOU CAN GET FOR THE PRICE OF A HOG For $17 to $22 you can have any two or three of the com- binations just named. For example, you can plant evergreens that will make a combination windbreak, screen, and winter- garden. Or you can frame a lawn, make an Illinois border, and attract friendly birds all with the same plants and in the same part of your grounds. By close figuring, it is even possible to accomplish all the objects here mentioned, except two; viz., make a lawn and get a first-class plan for your home grounds. We do not wish to discourage anyone by underestimating the cost of gardening. It often costs a city man $100 to make a lawn of one acre, for the seed alone costs $25, plowing and har- rowing $7.50, subsoiling $5, sowing $i, manure $10, while the grading and other expenses may bring the total to $100. The farmer, however, need not make a cash outlay of more than $25 for a lawn, or say the price of a hog. Sell a hog, and have some beauty! WHAT YOU CAN GET FOR ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS A good many farmers are now getting their places planned 1 and planted for $100, the price of five hogs. Can't you? Do not go at this matter either in the spirit of show or of senti- mentality, but consider this business proposition: Can't you Machine Shed X Granary - Shop Pasture Granary Barn N _ mm around I ! Bush Fruiis ChickenYard | Hou Garden '/ 1 } -' i Lane ,' & GXooo) Wn i ' ' ! I i .' . \ i y-._ Highway 96. Before Enlarging the Farmstead T ne .y. art ' was on 'y I0 .S * 12 f cet and was bounded by two straight rows of box elders, nch hid all the good views and left all the ugly outbuildings in plain sight. Otherwise the yard was bare no playground, no foundation planting, hardly a flower. The next wh J - " *""- '** JJI.4 > . i .11 I 11 , , IIU I' ill M I 1.1 I i. n i | ,i.i j i i i i i, , llultllj a IH1WC1. 1 lie lIVAb shows how George Curtiss, of Stockton, Jo Daviess Co., plans to improve the farmstead, hig. 07 has been re-drawn and improved by Mr. L. E. Fogjesong, but it shows what a student can do after attending a dozen lectures and six practical exercises. Many farmers should do as well as this after studying this circular. of i ' V) v v 'jii^'H^S^ \j-* ? , rf &/ ^ P^" ' -y Hiihway 9- 7 if 97. After Enlarging the Farmstead The yard is now 170 x igo feet, which is three-fourths of an acre an increase of r$o per cent. He gets five good views by cutting out useless trees; nearly triples his lawn; removes and groups in better places the utilities, e.g., small fruits, chickens, and smoke- house; screens outbuildings and chicken-yard; cuts out the decaying fruit trees, while saving the best; protects his house from winds by evergreens; gets room for a tennis-court; plants the boundaries and foundations; makes a flower-garden visible from the parlor; and adds a bird-garden all at a cost of $46.15, the price of two hogs. THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 29 invest $100 in plans and planting in such a way that it will add $500 to $ 1,000 to the salable value of your home in five or ten years? Can you make as big a profit by putting that money into house, barn, or hogs? The plan is the most important thing of all! HOW TO PLAN YOUR HOME GROUNDS The ideal is to have a first-class landscape gardener, because a beginner cannot do so well as an expert, and landscape gar- dening is a life-study. It is a fine art, like architecture, music, poetry, or painting. The landscape gardener costs more at the start, but is cheaper in the end, because he saves you all the bother and expense of rearranging everything when you learn better. He will usually save his fee on nursery stock alone by buying the right kinds and getting them at wholesale rates. Nearly every nursery of national reputation now has a landscape department, and most plans involving $100 or less are made in this way. Some of this work is good, but there are unworthy men in every line of business, and some do not rise above the temptation to specify four plants where one will do, or to use only their own stock, or to scatter plants in the gaudy way. Can't you plan your own grounds with the aid of this cir- cular? If you prefer to have experts submit plans, you can check their value by seeing how well they provide for every need mentioned in the first sentence of each paragraph in this circular. No book can ever tell you just how to plan your place, for no two places are or should be alike, and ready-made plans are of little or no value. HOW TO GET A FREE ILLUSTRATED LECTURE You can get a free lecture, illustrated by colored lantern- slides, called "The Illinois Way of Beautifying the Farm," by applying to Wilhelm Miller, University of Illinois, Urbana. He will send you a box containing about fifty slides, with self- explanatory captions, so that you can read them to a local audi- ence and thus avoid all lecturer's fees and traveling expenses. The only cost is the express both ways, which is about $i. Thus, the small rural communities can have an entertainment worth at least $i a seat at a cost of one-half to five cents a person. If there are 1,000 farmers in your neighborhood, by thorough advertising you can get 200 to turn out, and you can persuade 100 to sign the Australian ballots (see back cover), which are practically promises to do some ornamental plant- ing within a year. By organizing and "following up," you can get the farmers to spend an average of $10 the first year, for nearly every farmhouse needs foundation planting. Copies of the "Australian Ballot" will be supplied, and can serve as programs. Every farmer can take home an extra copy and nail it up where it will remind him daily of the ideals he intends to realize this year. THE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THIS CIRCULAR We are indebted to the J. Horace McFarland Co., Harrisburg, Pa., for Figs. 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 19, 23, 24, 36 to 40, 42, 45, 47 to 50, 55 to 58, 60 to 64, 66 to 69, 72 to 74, 76 to 82, 103, 104, 110, and 112. To N. R. Graves for Figs. 41, 44, 71, and 83. To L. E. Foglesong for Figs. 87, 96, 97, and 98. To Henry Fuermann & Sons for the front cover and for Figs. 3, 65, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 108, and 109. To Wm. Robinson for Fig. 4 from photograph by George Champion. To E. J. Hall for Fig. 7. To Mrs. Flora Sims for Figs. 11, 31, 43, and 89. To Prof. J. W. Lloyd for Figs. 15, 16, and 54. To the U. S. Department of Agriculture for Figs. 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 91, and 92. To The Decatur Review for Figs. 18, 23, and 24. To Professor B.S. Pickett for Figs. 20, 88, and 90. To The Macmillan Co. for the use of Figs. 21, 22, and 53. To Arno H. Nehrling for Figs. 29, 30, 35, and 86. To the H. C. White Co. for the hawthorn used in Fig. 32. To A. W. Bryant for Figs. 46, 75, 84, and 85. To W. C. Egan for Figs. 51 and 52. To B. A. Strauch for Fig. 59. To Chester M. Whitney for Fig. 70. To Loring Underwood for Figs. 93 and 94. To R. E. Brand for Fig. 95. To A. G. Eldredge for Fig. 107. To the Department of Horticulture for Fig. 85. To Miss B. J. Colwell for Fig. 8. THE ILLINOIS WAY OF PLANTING SCHOOL GROUNDS You can make fifty dollars' worth of improvement in the looks of your school at a cost of ten dollars, and also bring back the birds, by adopting the "Illinois Way." Here is a simple scheme for making permanent improvement in your school grounds, which is practical in city or country, even if you have no technical knowledge of botany or horti- culture, and even if you have no money! Plant shrubs and vines native to Illinois against the joundations of your school. Ten Parlor tjnntf /foonj 98. A Foundation Planting of Illinois Shrubs and Vines The sort of thine that any farmer can do without cash outlay by collecting the plants of his own neighborhood. He will get better results by buying nursery-grown plants of the same species at a cost of $20 to $40. The arrows point toward vines. KEY TO THE ILLINOIS FOUNDATION PLANTING (Explaining Fig. 98) 1. Maple-leaved arrow-wood (Viburnum acerifolium). 2. High bush cranberry (Viburnum Opulus). 3. Hazelnut (Corylus americana). 4. Gray dogwood (Cornus candidissima or paniculata). 5. Downy-leaved arrow-wood (Viburnum pubescens). 6. Buffalo currant (Ribes aureum). 7. Red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia). 8. Silky cornel (Cornus Amomum or sericea) 9. Red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera). 10. Black chokeberry (Aronia nigra). 11. Shadbush (Amelanchier Botryapium). 12. Scarlet sumac (Rhus glabra). 13. Sweet-scented sumac (Rhus aromatica). 14. Illinois or dwarf sumac (Rhus copallina). 15. Ferns and asters (Aster, etc.). 16. Sheepberry (Viburnum I.entago). 17. Illinois or prairie rose (Rosa setigera). 18. Round-leaved dogwood (Cornus circinata). 19. Northern fox grape (Vitis Labrusca). 20. Summer grape (Vitis sestivalis). 21. Frost grape (Vitis cordifolia). 22. Trumpet creeper (Tecoma radicans). 23. Climbing bittersweet (Celastrus scandens). 24. Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). 25. Virginia virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana). 30 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 99. Before Framing the Winter View with Hawthorns ke, river, and prairie view in Ill , the time. A cheap, practical, and permanent way to enliven it is shown in Fig. 100. Many a lake, river, and prairie view m Illinois is dull, monotonous, and cold much of Every farmer may practice the "religion of the prairie" by planting stratified trees .. . 1: :* :_ _i : c:~ which repeat the lines of the prairie. (Same bank as Fig. 99, on M; 100. After Framing the Winter View with Hawthorns planting st agnus place, Wmnetka.) 101. The Old Way of Treating Water Views All vegetation on the banks was destroyed so as to get the widest view possible. No cruder conception of art can be imagined than blank lawn, blank water, and blank sky. Yet many people still fancy that trees are "unnecessary" by the ocean or lake shore. It has never dawned upon them that a view needs a frame. Trees make it possible to break up the broad views into many intimate pictures as seen from the house, without destroy- ing the broad view, which is still visible from the best place, viz., the shore. (This photo- graph actually shows a portion of the same lawn seen in Fig. 102.) On a gray winter day one can hardly distinguish land, water, and clouds in such a view. dollars will usually buy all the shrubs necessary to surround a country school, and ten dollars spent at the "dramatic spot" will go farther than fifty dollars scattered over the lawn. Fifty dollars may be necessary for a city school, but you can raise the money by private subscription if you will show these pictures to the right man. The results will be so satisfactory that in three or four years, when the shrubs mature, your community will consider getting a comprehensive plan for your schools, which will make provision for playgrounds, school gardens, planting, and all other outdoor features. Even if you have no technical knowledge and no money you can do the foundation planting this spring. No plan is neces- 102. The "Illinois Way" of Treating Water Views "I persuaded my neighbor to plant this tree to frame his views of Lake Michigan, and to form a natural arbor? Isn't this better than a man-made arbor? From here he has an unbroken view of the magnificent shore-line to the left. From the porch his lake view is no longer cold, dull, and monotonous, but intimate and personal, because this stratified hawthorn is silhoutted against water and sky, repeating on a smaller scale the great lines of the landscape. Formerly, when a steamer went by it was lost in space; now it makes a strong and stirring picture when seen between the hawthorn and the oak. T he dotted haw (Crattegus punctata), we moved from the woods." (Signed) W. C. Egan, Highland Park, III. sary. All you need is the gumption to help the children dig and fertilize the ground, to take them out on two or three Saturday afternoon walks, and to bring home the common bushes that grow wild within a mile or two of the school. Surely, you can tell wild grape, Virginia creeper, wild clematis, bittersweet, sumach, prairie rose, buckbush, or elderberry? If not, any farmer can tell you some of them even in winter. And even if only one kind is available that is better than nothing. A schoolhouse surrounded by sumach or elder looks twice as well as one that is absolutely bare. You can dig these bushes in March or early April, before the buds begin to swell. Then you can organize the children to protect the birds and 103. A Road without Hawthorns A sure way to kill interest in country life is to cut down all hawthorns and crab apples, and leave only weeds, poles, wires, and mud. Along the roadside we want thorny shrubs that will take care of tnemselves and not be overrun by animals. 104. The Same Road with Hawthorns Illinois can excel tiie rest of the world in beauty only by planting everywhere the pecu- liar trees and shrubs which Nature designed her to grow to perfection, especially stratified hawthorns and crab apples. , THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 31 105. The "Illinois Way" of Landscape Gardening Is Not a Mere Dream It Really Exists Now Here is a part of the famous "prairie river" in Humboldt Park, Chicago, with a miniature cataract modeled after those in the Rock River, and a bank full of yellow, daisy-like flowers, e.g., compass plants and coneflowers, symbolizing the vast sheets of composite flowers that once glorified the prairie state. (Designed by Jens Jensen.) water the shrubs during the summer. A teacher who hasn't schools need foundation planting, why native shrubs are best, spunk enough to do this much would better quit. why the gaudy style is objectionable, and why the "Illinois The Arbor and Bird Day Manual for 1914 explains why Way" is better. 1 06. You Can Restore and Intensify the "Local Color" on Your Farm The people of Chicago have created at great expense the sort of thing every farmer can enjoy for nothing. This prairie river landscape was designed by Jensen, and planted with common Illinois flowers, e.g., swamp rose mallow, blue flag, water-lily, calamus, phlox, etc. 32 THE "ILLINOIS WAY" OF BEAUTIFYING THE FARM 107. An Illinois Bird-Garden "Under this wild grape-vine is a little pool that attracts thousands of birds. Over fifty species have been counted within a short time, and this too in a great city! The songs, colors, and actions of these birds have delighted our family every day for many years. Anyone can have this sort of bird-garden. 1 he pool is simply an oval piece of concrete, about 2 by 3 feet, and the water is only three inches deep in the middle. Cost not more than $2 for cement, plants, and labor." (Signed) O. C. Simonds, Landscape Gardener, Chicago, 111. thorns and crab apples, dogwoods, elders, and viburnums. To feed the birds the year round, plant some of the following: (The num- bers in parenthesis indicate the number of species of birds known to feed on these berries.) Common and red elder (67); silky, gray, red, and green dog- woods (47); fragrant, Illinois, and smooth sumach (47); high bush and dwarf blueberry (37); dwarf June- berry (20); maple-leaved and other viburnums (16); Illinois and Eastern spice bush (11); Illinois, glossy, and smooth rose (10); Missouri and wild black currant (10). (Statistics from McAtee's "Plants Useful to Attract Birds and Protect Fruit," which you can get free from the U. S. Department of Agriculture by asking for Yearbook Separate No. 504). To furnish nesting-places for birds, plant the Missouri and wild black cur- rants. Intersperse the viburnums with the Illinois rose, and then keep out the cats by means of box traps and chloro- form. On light and sandy soil plant red SHRUBS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS For the north or shady side of your schoolhouse plant silky, gray, red, or green dogwood, fragrant sumach, wild black currant, common or red elder, dwarf blueberry, high bush blueberry, maple-leaved viburnum, arrow-wood, nanny- berry or downy viburnum. To repeat the prairie lines, plant stratified Illinois haw- 108. The "Illinois Way" of Cemetery Planting Not a stone in sight. The dominant thought is comfort, beauty, inspiration. Every spring this landscape changes from death to life. It is Nature's symbol of the resurrection of the soul. The cemetery should not be the place of hopeless grief, but a temple of beauty a vision of a better life here and now. (Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, designed by O. C. Simonds.) elder, dwarf Juneberry, green dogwood, or fragrant, Illinois, and smooth sumach. All shrubs in the table will grow in a wide range of soils, except blueberries. Against high foundations plant Illinois spice bush, common elder, high bush blueberry, arrow-wood, nannyberry, high bush cranberry, red bud, black haw, scarlet and cockspur thorn, bladder nut, winterberry, strawberry bush or burning bush. To prevent cutting across and to protect birds from their enemies, plant prickly ash and Illinois rose, mixed with other shrubs; cat-brier trailing over other shrubs, or low-running blackberry. [The above lists were prepared by Mr. Franz A. Aust and Mr. L. E. Foglesong, who have rendered valuable assistance in many ways.] PERMANENT VINES MAY. Wistaria Chinensis. JUNE. *Wild grapes, * Illinois rose (Rosa setigera) and its varieties. Baltimore Belle, Queen of the Prairies, and Gem of the Prairies, also Rosa multiflora. JULY. Memorial Rose (Rosa Wichu- raiana), *trumpet creeper, and *wild clematis. AUGUST. Clematis paniculata and *AmpeIopsis cordata (Vitis indivisa), with showy blue berries. SEPTEMBER. *Virginia creeper and *EngeImann's ivy. OCTOBER TO MARCH. Evergreen bit- tersweet (Euonymus radicans, var. vegetus), trailing myrtle (Vinca minoi), * Illinois rose and multiflora rose. 'Native to Illinois. log. A Bird-Garden in the Heart of Chicago, Which Is an Outdoor Living-Room the Year Round It consists of a dancing spring, with rockwork modeled after the Rock River, a food-house to shelter the birds in winter, and shrubs with edible berries to feed the round. The bird-garden is probably the best type of ornamental garden ever invented in America. It is more permanent than the Colonial garden, costs less to main lite, and is attractive more months in the year. It can be adapted to every climate, environment, and purse. (Mrs. Albert H. Loeb's garden, designed by Jens Jensen.) THE RELIGION OF THE PRAIRIE The most creative people who ever lived were the Greeks, but the greatest race the world shall ever know will be cradled in the Middle West. The climate and the landscape make that certain. For the Middle West is the world's greatest runway for the winds and for ideas. We have no complicated moun- tain systems, as Europe does, to breed endless artificial differ- ences of dress, language, and thought. There is not one range between the Alleghanies and the Rockies to stop the sweep of the winds or the triumphal march of man's progress. A better \\ay of doing things, or a nobler ideal, spreads like a prairie fire. An extreme climate breeds a lusty body, and a broad landscape instils breadth of mind. These two forces, acting siiently throughout the centuries, will beget a corresponding breadth of soul. Environment must, in time, make its mark. No longer do men fear, hate, or despise the prairie. They once thought that flat land must ever be monoto- nous, dull, stupefying. But a new, virile, prairie school of art has opened our eyes to the meaning of those vast horizontal lines of land, crops, woods, and sky, which are the peculiar glory of the prairie. The heavenward-pointing mountain i$ not the only symbol of aspiration; the ever-stretching ocean and the prairie a|te also symbols of the Infinite. The biarren mountains and unharvested sea njtay smite the soul with awe, but the joyous prairie is the world's loveliest reminder of God's endless bounty. The siecret charm of every prairie view is the 1 ision which it inspires of a united and prosperous humanity. The sublime breadth of the earth's surface stirs every >ne to consecrate his life toward realizing 1 ;hat vision. This is the "religion of the oraine" that is getting into men's bones. Everyone who works for the good of , lis community knows what this means. Western art, therefore, is essentially religious. Its chief motive is to glorify the horizontal lines that symbolize infinite breadth and bounty. Religion makes the western architect and landscape designer repeat in house and garden the lovely line of the land. Religion thrills the western painters to portray the widespread arms of crab apple and hawthorn. Religion stirs western musicians, sculptors, and poets to express the vast scale and subtle sweetness of the prairie. The religion of the prairie is the gospel of beauty. The waving banners of the corn beget the insurgent soul. The Middle West is a "far-flung battle-line" that fights corruption and ugliness in every form. Can't you see it marching irresistibly toward the inevitable goal of universal brotherhood ? Isn't this your religion ? Have you enlisted for the fight ? If not, join some chamber of com- merce, commercial club, or farmers' organization and work! Let us all sacrifice something for the common good ! no. What You Can Get for Nothing The best plants in the world, free, Illinois trees, shrubs, and flowers. Beginning at the upper left corner, they are: Flowering dogwood, to frame the view of your house; American bluebells, to restore charm to pur woods; white pines to make a dignified approach; _iigh bush cranberry, for red berries against the snow aliwinter; Virginia creeper for the porch; sumach, to screen an outbuilding; the old tree in the field to leave for the children; elders for your bird-garden; a tulip tree, to make a background For the house; red cedars for windbreaks; Illinois rose and high bush cranberry for your Illinois border. Dig only where there are too many for their own good, ana do not be greedy. Better still, buy them from Illinois nurserymen. * ; :t J. Horace McFartand Company, Mount Pleasant Press, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania IT I. Before You Plant against the Foundations Your house, whether you live in city or country, will look as bare as these houses did in 1013, before seventeen houses in three blocks were planted under the direction of Profes- sor Root. The foundation is the one spot around every house that needs attention first of all. Forget everything else and register a promise right now that you will do the funda- mental thing necessary to make your house look like a real home ! 112. After You Plant against the Foundations In three years your planting will look as well as this, for small shrubs of nursery sir.e mature in three or four years. The best way is to use Illinois plants for Illinois problems, as much as possible, but any way is good, provided you use permanent shrubs and vines. Invest $10 now in foundation planting ana you will be so delighted with the results .hat . in three years you will have a comprehensive plan for your home grounds. I WILL D Plant or improve my WINDBREAK, not live in a bare, wind-swept spot. D SCREEN unsightly objects, e. g., barnyard and outbuildings. D Frame the VIEW of my house from the road and of the farm from my dining-room and porch. D Plant bushes and vines against the FOUNDATIONS of my house. D Make a good permanent LAWN, not a cheap weed-patch, and keep the center open, not scatter plants over it. D Have SHRUBBERY, instead of artificial hedges, or temporary flower-beds in the middle of the lawn. D Save old TREES on lawn, roadside, or pasture. D Plant chiefly long-lived NATIVE MATERIAL, not short-lived "quick-growers" or foreign and artificial varieties. D Make a practical FLOWER-GARDEN, e. g., a cut-flower, bird, children's wild, winter, or tree garden, instead of copying something eastern, English, or Italian. D Plant an ILLINOIS BORDER, sacred to Illinois trees, shrubs, and wild flowers. D Restore and preserve the LOCAL COLOR, instead of destroying every shrub within a mile. D Adopt the ILLINOIS WAY, not the gaudy, conventional, and imitative style, for I do not want my place to look like every beginner's the world over. D Build and plant a PERMANENT COUNTRY HOME. D PLAN or re-plan my home grounds, or engage a landscape gardener. Without agreeing to pay anybody anything, I promise to do some permanent ornamental planting within a year.