A tourist riding a few miles in almost any New England city, would
hardly fail to notice that a large number of the rural residences
display a profusion of architectural embellishment, without wearing
a cheerful, home-like look. He would pass cottage after cottage
ornamented with slender porticoes, fanciful verandas, sculptured gables
and deep bay windows, but situated in a pen-like looking enclosure,
and surrounded with fixtures, dark and dismal; and with arbor vitæ
hedges whose yellow cast clearly indicated that they had been planted
in ungenial soil. In each narrow yard he would notice flower beds,
containing many unhealthy looking plants, and most of these beds would
exhibit the same arrangement and the same multifarious specimens of the
odds and ends of Nature for miles. He would remark concerning these
suburban seats that they were _pretty_; he would hardly say beautiful,
certainly not charming. They were not satisfying to the eye—they were
designed to impart an expression of exquisite rurality but failed. As
the same tourist passed by some old-fashioned farm house, with its
broad green lawns in front, shaded with green old elms; as he noticed
the wood colored porch covered with luxuriant woodbine, the dove-cote
with its glittering birds, the dark orchards beyond the yard, the
pond in the meadow overhung with willows; or, as he descried some
inexpensive cottage, removed from the road and half hidden from view
by graceful arbors and vigorous native trees, he would ride slowly and
express his satisfaction at each of these scenes of rural taste and
beauty.
It is not the richness of art that gives to English cottages their
picturesqueness and poetic expression, but the beauty of the grounds
that surround them, and the vines that adorn them. It is not the
fantastic gables, nor the latticed windows that so captivate the eye
of the traveller, but the tasteful foliage that drapes them, and the
lustrous vines that embower them. Denude these cottages of these
embellishments, and many of them would appear as uninviting to the eye
as the mouldering tower without the classic ivy.
Louis XIV had his Versailles, and his elegant queen her embowered
Triannon; but the simple charms of Triannon proved more inviting to the
cultivated minds of the court, than the gorgeous pile and artificial
gardens at Versailles.
We devote too much time to the cultivation of exotics, and too lightly
value the vines and shrubs of our native soil. Again, we sacrifice rich
foliage that lasts for a season, to gaudy flowers that last only for a
brief period. The double prairie rose is a very delightful sight—for a
single week—and during the remaining season it is a miserable brier,
commonly wormy and lousy. Yet the prairie rose is in common use as
an ornament for the veranda, while the jessamine, the woodbine, the
wisteria and the luxuriant honeysuckle are, put in less conspicuous
places, or their cultivation wholly neglected.
It may be cited as an evidence of improving taste in the rural art,
that rustic work, which imparts to a place an expression of delightful
rurality, is taking the place of images, porcelain vases, etc.,
that long have been conspicuous objects in almost every parterre.
The perfection of beauty to which this work may be carried has been
admirably illustrated in Central Park, New York City, and widely copied
by gentlemen of taste. Few objects are more pleasing than rustic arbors
or even rustic urns over-running with foliage.
Among the most pleasing vines for embellishment of rural seats are the
honeysuckle (_Lonicera japonica_ and the trumpet vine), the woodbine,
the jessamine and the American ivy. For adorning stone work, the
English ivy is very rich, though it grows imperfectly in our Northern
latitudes.
The woodbine forms a massive drapery for a cottage porch. It has a rich
marine hue in summer, and it is very richly tinted in autumn after
the early frosts. The Japan honeysuckle is deliciously fragrant, and
it retains its dark lustrous foliage until mid-winter. Unlike many
climbers this honeysuckle, together with the trumpet vine, is not
liable to be infested with insects. The feathery _clematis_, known also
by the names of the _virgin’s bower_ and the _traveller’s joy_, is a
pretty creeper for walls and fences; and the common hop vine may be
made to add beauty to the dove-cote and the martin boxes, when these
are placed after the old English manner, upon poles.
The American ivy is one of the most prolific of foliage vines. The
leaves when they are young are of a delicate pea-green color, but they
become dark and lustrous as the season advances. They are very gorgeous
after the early autumn frosts, displaying the richest tints of orange
and vermillion. The ivy forms a sort of net-work for old crumbling
walls, and it is indigenous to stormy places.
There is a slender vine very common in the Eastern States that is
seldom used for ornamental purposes, to which we would especially
invite the attention of the florists. It is called the ground nut,
(_Apios tuberosa._) Its foliage is dark, thick, and very graceful.
The flowers are remarkable. They are dark purple in color and present
a peculiar waxy appearance, in dense predunculate, axillary racemes.
Their odor is wonderfully sweet, and it is so powerful and inexhaustive
as to fill perpetually the air. The vine entwines itself among low
bushes in its native state. A florist of our acquaintance supplemented
the charms of her trellises of roses by entwining these vines among the
branches. Her rooms were filled with fragrance whenever the windows
were thrown open during the whole of the hot season. The flowers of the
ground nut vine last for a very long period. Remember this vine in your
summer rambles.—_Working Farmer._
CLEAN THE CELLAR.—The Boston _Journal of Chemistry_ says: “Diptheria,
typhoid, and scarlet fevers, and many other most serious illnesses,
have their origin in cellars both in city and country; and we can do
our readers no greater service than to urge them to see that at all
times they are in a dry, sweet, wholesome condition. Why should farmers
and farmer’s families, living in the country away from the pestilential
vapors of the cities, be so subject to attacks of malignant diseases?
There is a reason for it, and we can point it out. They arise from
the indifference manifested to the observance of hygienic rules and
the violation of sanitary laws. Cleanliness is essential to health,
and it is just as necessary in the country as in the city. A family
living over a foul cellar is more liable to be poisoned and afflicted
with illness than a city family living in its polluted atmosphere,
but without cellar or basement filled with fermenting roots and
fruits. There is far more sickness in the country among husbandmen
than there ought to be. With plenty of pure air, water, and exercise,
the evil imp Disease ought to be kept at bay, and he would be better
if an observance of certain hygienic conditions were maintained. Bad
conditioned cellars, small, close sleeping rooms, stoves—these are all
agents of evil, and are fast making the homes of farmers almost as
unhealthy as those of the dwellers in cities. Are not these suggestions
worthy of consideration?”