, but the ideal is constantly before us to urge us on,
and the home-instinct actuates us in all our efforts to make the place
in which we live so beautiful that it will have for those we love, and
those who may come after us, a charm that no other place on earth will
ever have until the time comes when _they_ take up the work of
home-making _for themselves_.

[Illustration: PILLAR-TRAINED VINES]

The man or woman who begins the improvement and the beautifying of the
home as a sort of recreation, as so many do, will soon feel the thrill
of the delightful occupation, and be inspired to greater undertakings
than he dreamed of at the beginning. One of the charms of home-making is
that it grows upon you, and before you are aware of it that which was
begun without a definite purpose in view becomes so delightfully
absorbing that you find yourself thinking about it in the intervals of
other work, and are impatient to get out among "the green things
growing," and dig, and plant, and prune, and train. You feel, I fancy,
something of the enthusiasm that Adam must have felt when he looked over
Eden, and saw what great things were waiting to be done in it. I am
quite satisfied he saw chances for improvement on every hand. God had
placed there the material for the first gardener to work with, but He
had wisely left it for the other to do with it what he thought best,
when actuated by the primal instinct which makes gardeners of so many,
if not the most, of us when the opportunity to do so comes our way.

I do not advocate the development of the aesthetic features of the home
from the standpoint of dollars and cents. I urge it because I believe it
is the _duty_ of the home-owner to make it as pleasant as it can well be
made, and because I believe in the gospel of beauty as much as I believe
in the gospel of the Bible. It is the religion that appeals to the finer
instincts, and calls out and develops the better impulses of our nature.
It is the religion that sees back of every tree, and shrub, and flower,
the God that makes all things--the God that plans--the God that expects
us to make the most and the best of all the elements of the good and the
beautiful which He has given into our care.

In the preparation of this book I have had in mind the fact that
comparatively few home-owners who set about the improvement of the
home-grounds know what to do, and what to make use of. For the benefit
of such persons I have tried to give clea