The gold mine in the front yard and how to work it

Index

Introduction 1

Beauty is wealth — The mission of beauty.

The Home 11

"There's no place like home" — The boys' room.

The Discovery of Beautiful Gems 16

The Concord Grape — The Wealthy Apple — Carnations — Paeonies, etc.

The Preparation of the Ground and the Preparation of

The Owner 22

Intelligence of the plant and tree worid.

Don't Be Stingy 30

Laying Out the Grounds 36

Kinds of trees and shrubbery and arrangement.

Hints and Suggestions — Selecting Trees and Shrubs.... 42

Raising plants from seed — Dogs and flowers.

Planting For Foliage Effect 55

Trees of silver foliage — Golden foliage — Purple foliage — Planting for Autumn effect.

The Lilac 62

The Persians — Emodi — Oblata — Japan — Tree Lilacs, etc.

The Viburnum, or Snowball 74

Other shrubs of value.

The Syringa, or Philadelphus 81

Spiraeas 89

The Rose 94

Japanese Roses — Climbing Roses — The Hybrids or Perpetuals — Preparing roses for winter.

iv INDEX.

The Lonicera, or Honeysuckle 105

Bush or Tree Honeysuckles — Planting a group — Propagation — Climbing Honeysuckles.

Perennial Flowers 114

Tulips — Yuccas — The Filamentosa — The Iris — The Golden Glow — Sunflowers,

Columbines 123

How to grow them — Delphiniums — The Lily — Time to plant — The Gaillardia — Oriental Poppy — Phloxes.

The Paeony 160

Classification — Propagation — Dividing the roots — Planting for flowers — Raising from roots — Propagation by grafting — Raising from seed — Care of seed and planting — Hardiness — Thoroughbred flowers — Changes of soil and climate — Mistakes and mixtures — Difficulties — Retarding for spring selling — Late blooming — Nonblooming Paeonies — Cutting from newly planted roots — Paeonies and insects — Diseases — Freaks, etc.

List of Some of The Leading Paeonies 219

Gladiolus, The Sword Lily s 242

Propagation — Flowers — Forcing — Cannas — Raising from seed — The Dahlia — Propagation — Varieties, etc.

Introduction

Often gold is found when least suspected. Miners for a generation roamed over the Cripple Creek hills, and did not dream of the millions beneath their feet. The shepherds of Australia led their flocks over pastures paved with gold and did not know it.

A poor rancher in the mountains found nuggets of gold in the crop of a turkey, and found whence they came and soon struck his millions.

But these are rare cases. Often I have known men to trudge over the mountains for years and endure all manner of privations and grow gray before they find wealth.

But every farmer has a gold mine in his front yard, where, least suspected, there are riches. Generation follows generation and the case is rare where these mines are worked as they should be.

It is generally supposed that the money is all in the back yard, the barn, the granary and the farm, and yet the richest deposits are at the front ; and every acre there is worth $1,000 at least, as we shall see.

BEAUTY IS WEALTH.

There are priceless values outside dollars and cents. ^yhat does the rich man do? Does he put all his gains where they will bring back so much annual interest in cold cash ? He does far better. There are more beautiful things in this life than greenbacks, silver and gold. The man gets a piece of land. A landscape gardener lays it out, then he has it planted to the choicest trees, shrubs and flowers. Tliese are well cared for, and that piece of brown earth soon develops into a beautiful estate — and that is wealth.

That plat of ground, of little value in itself, becomes a garden of delight. As the years go by it grows more and more beautiful — the joy of the owner and the delight of all who pass by.

I^ow please tell me why the western farmer cannot be rich. He has better land than the eastern man who buys a worn-out field, and then pays $10 a cord for manure besides the hauling. The farmer has plenty of manure in his yard. Trees and flowers will grow for him as well as for others. Go to the experiment stations, and you will see what vast numbers of things there are which do well all over the West.

The farmer's wife belongs to the noblest race on earth. How much of patience, fortitude and hard work she has displayed in the homebuilding. Heaven help him if his sons and daughters are not of more worth than many of the children of the rich who live in a band box and must be fed with a spoon.

Farmers complain that their children do not like the farm, and as soon as they can they will leave it. What wonder! I knew of a man worth $75,000, with a large farm well stocked — not a carpet on the floor — not a rocking chair in the house — no hooks, magazines or pictures — not a tree in the yard — not a shrub or flower. It was grind, grind, grind for dollars from early morning till late at night. The three daughters who might have been ornaments to society were lured away to lives of shame. The five boys ran away and all but one became vagabonds. You do not want to raise a family of boors — awkward and ill at ease in society. You want them to be educated and refined. Surround tlicni with refining influences; let them associate with beautiful things. G-ive them a taste of the real luxuries and entertainments of life. Make the home so attractive that it will be the dearest spot on earth.

My thoughts revert to the home of my friend, T. C. Thurlow, of West !N"ewbury, Mass. His grandson is the tenth generation born on the old place. Every tree has a history. One Fourth of July we took dinner under a fine old elm his grandfather planted. Back of the house is an artificial gi'ove of spruce. The rows are like columns in some grand cathedral. The tops have woven a canopy of green that shuts out the sun. The family are troubled with weak lungs. A few years ago he planted some little white pines and they are now a forest filling the air with healing. In front of the house are thousands of the finest of paeonies, and yonder such a field of glorious phloxes. There are silver robed trees from the Rockies. Evergreens and deciduous trees gathered from different parts of the earth. Everywhere there are things of beauty. ''No wonder the children dread to leave home and rejoice when they can get back again.

Take it all around, and no investment will pay better than 3'Our gold mine in your front yard. ''Well/^ says one, ^'I don't know how to work it. I don't know anything about horticulture." We thought perhaps that was the case, and so this book is written in the hope that it will develop the immense amount of wealth and beauty now idle, or existing only in thought.

Let us outline this matter. We visit a fine estate in Massachusetts. There is a marvelous group of trees dressed in silver and sapphire. Their sheen is like soft moonlight lingering among the branches. Offer the man $100 apiece for them. He would not take twice that. You buy those same trees of silvery hue for $2.00 each; then see them grow. They will do as well in Minnesota as in Massachusetts. Each little tree will be ambitious to work out that $100 for you; and it will be worth as much to you and your family as to any one.

A little boy once planted a quarter, and a few days after dug it up to see if it had sprouted. Another little fellow who loved his grandma dearly moved with his parents to a far Western home. He was terribly homesick. How he did long for the kind arms and the dear old face ! One day his mother found him planting a photograph in the garden. It was the picture of the dear old lady. He burst into tears and said: "I was plantin' danma so she would grow and I could have her adin.'' Poor little fellow! Silver and photos can't grow, but trees can.

I saw a beautiful lilac tree tw^enty years old. It was thirty inches around and thirty feet high and all that splendid crown Avas a mass of fragrant bloom. Would $100 buy it? Yet for $1.00 you buy the same kind of a tree, which is as hardy and thrifty as our native ash and which in its native mountains of Japan is a foot through and fifty feet high. Professor Green has them growing on the University grounds. There is one to match it — the Chinese tree lilac with charming foliage and drooping branches.

What a vast array of flowering shrubs. Besides 130 kinds of lilacs we have a splendid list of syringas, spirseas, viburnums, and many others.

Take the perennials. What a noble family — phloxes blooming from June to I^ovember.

Get a dozen of them and this book will tell you how to swell the number to a thousand so you can have a field of splendor.

Plant a few paeonies and soon you have hundreds.

There are the columbines which have robbed the rainbow of all its colors and woven them into bouquets fit for kings.

Think of the enjoyment you will have. When you are tired with your day's work just take a vacation on your front porch, and any day from spring till the hard frosts of autumn there will be a procession of beauty on gorgeous dress parade before you.

If there were such a park as you might have ten miles away you would hitch the team to the carriage, and take your whole family to see it. Why don't you have a park of your own and make your farm a sort of Mecca to the lovers of nature?

Good old Mother N^ature. What a heartache she has had all these years because she could not get at you and go to w^ork for you.

She Jias a plan for fixing up, and just beside you in the unseen she has a vision of loveliness which she would like to make a substantial reality. She is ready to open the door into fairyland and let you see just what is waiting for you.

You read these lines and ask, "Is this possible for me ?" Yes ! ^ow won't you fix up ? That neglected piece of ground is too valuable for rooting pigs and sick and disabled machinery.

Now every man who owes a debt ought to pay up. The man who owns 160 acres of land is a king by divine right. He owns down to the center of the eartli and up to the stars. With the warranty deed which comes from the United States government and from God there, is an implied obligation to make the most of this empire of yours. Every nook and corner of it should be put to its best. The home should be like a splendid picture set in a suitable frame.

THE MISSION^ OF BEAUTY.

When the whole world is so full of beauty why should it be entirely ignored on the farm? You see it everywhere. It sits on the bow which fronts the storm. You see it in those mountains of cloud dressed in gorgeous robes of ruby, and opal, of amethyst and gold, as they escort the retiring day to his chambers in the West. The vast prairies when unvexed by man were gardens of flowers. You plant an orchard and it is clothed with fragrant bloom in springtime, and in autumn it is a bouquet of loveliness with its fruit of red and gold.

God might have made the cherry, the peach, and the apple the color of the stones, but he chose to feed the eye as well as the palate. Through beauty he would touch the soul. Put a man where you will, and there will be some of the attractions of nature to welcome him. The tropics are filled with flowers, and they alternate in the hemispheres. They salute him in the vast countries of the North. How fascinating the splendors of the aurora as they flash and flame on the walls of the sky! The arch above us is kalsomined with sapphire, and sprinkled with stars. Then the gates of the future open before us on scenes of transcendent loveliness.

Why on earth in these mortal bodies do objects diminish in ratio to distance ? Can you look the noonday sun out of countenance as it is ? Suppose you could see all things now in their full proportions. You take one glance upward into the empires of glory, where vast cities of stars are blazing and monster worlds lie along the path of vision, and a single glance would paralyze the strongest brain.

But by and by we will awake in the divine likeness and see as God sees. Then what prospects will open before us as we are greeted with the salutations of -the universe. Each star has a mantle in color and fashion all its own, — no two alike; and the stupendous empire stretching to the shores of chaos will rise as endless fields of loveliness filled with the surprises and astonishments of beauty.

Language labors and falters in the attempt to describe our home in the future, with jasper walls, and opal sea, with gates of pearl and golden pavements and foundations set with precious gems.

When we have such an inheritance of beauty in this world and the next, why should the farmer, who is part owner of this earth, ignore it altogether, especially since God has made him a creator who, with a wizard's wand,, can call up visions, marvels in form and dazzling in beauty ?

He can take an acre of somber earth and gather upon it the colors of the rainbow, the splendors of the sunset, the radiance of the gems, and it will be a land Elysian — promise and prophesy of what lies beyond.

We are just on the borders of what is yet to be revealed to us here. What changes have been produced in a few years. The carnation of today was evolved from a humble flower. The dahlia had a very inferior ancestry. The phlox, with its marvels of brilliancy and attractiveness, reaching out into hundreds of varieties, was a, humble flower born on our great prairies. The paeony of today is one of evolution's miracles. And just before us are the most delightful possibilities. How keen the zest of those who hunt for diamonds, pearls, rubies and other precious gems. There is a kindred delight for those in search of new and rare floral treasures. When Rosenfield gave us Golden Harvest among the paeonies he gave, not a single gem, but one that will grow to cheer a million homes. When Terry gave us his Excelsior, Clara Barton and Victor paeonies it was as if he scattered gems that would grow and cheer and gladden thousands.

In my own experience I have seen marvels of new creations among the phloxes, and seedlings of my own raising far surpass many of our choice importations; and so with columbines. What delicate rays of beauty are gathered into some of those newer forms. How much awaits us among the paeonies. What surprises for myself and the world must come from thirty-five pounds of choicest seed. We have only touched the great empire of beauty which stretches before us.

CITAPTEK I.

THE HOME.

This should not be a kennel, a sty, a stable, or a barn. It is tlie dwelling place of immortals. It should be the most sacred spot on eartli. The residence need not always be elaborate. There is much of cheer often in the lowly cottage. The spirit of the home is the presence of the wife and mother. Tf this is lacking the place is a desolation.

The new woman greedily seeks the new vocations, trying by all means to avoid wliat she terms ^^domestic drudgery.'' But there is no occupation more noble than that whicli ministers to the wants of the loved ones — no hand so beautiful as that from Avhicli fall the benedictions of toil and cheerfulness.

People, of necessity, are often restricted in home arrangements.

When our people moved West in '44 we lived for years in a house 18x24 which cost just $50. It had a chamber Avhere our sleeping bunks were. We climbed to it on a ladder. There Avere nine of us. But as means increased home comforts grew. Times have changed. Our farmers are w^ell to do, or even rich, and now can have home comforts and conveniences.

What tremendous influences are all the while going out of our American homes. Tliej are sources of power.

From on© of them a boj goes to his life work as one of the captains of industry. ■ And. mark you, most of the Titans of today, mightier than fabled Thor or Vulcan, came from country homes.

There goes a thoughtful girl with fertile brain and facile pen. She was born and reared in the country where she could get acquainted with herself and learn to think and write and the world loves her.

From another home goes a boy with the soul of a patriot. He enters a naval academy and sooner or later you may hear of another Santiago or Manilla.

Another goes to West Point and becomes a Grant or Sheridan.

We think too little of home. How few expect to live and die on their farms. They hope to sell, and what a shifting race in which the home instinct is almost blotted out !

What spot can be more sacred in its hallowed associations ? In that room a little sister with starry eyes and hair of woven sunbeans went into the open arms of a waiting Saviour. Is that room a place for strangers ? Should wooden shoes go clamping in places touched by angels' feet?

In that room Grandfather passed away. How the children loved to gather there and listen to stories of the past. What a kindly soul he was and the little ones loved to nestle on his bosom. When he died it was the death of the righteous. The gates were opened and heavenly escorts bore him home.

There a mother passed away. I stood by her side and saw and heard it all. Her eyes were closed to earthly things and then there passed by her on the shores of light the processions of glory. I cannot forget the rapture and the gladness and the outreaching and the last words, ^^Oh, beautiful, beautiful Jesus !'' Should that holy place be desecrated by those who neither know nor care for any of those precious memories ?

In that room as a child you lay sick for weeks. At the foot of your bed pictures were changed every day to give your tired soul something new to think of. Your mates came in to cheer you. You have a dim remembrance of the long vigils of father and mother and the good doctors who could not let you die.

What gatherings were in that parlor. Jane and Sarah and Emma were married there. You remember where they stood and how they looked.

There is the dining room where the wedding and Thanksgiving feasts Avere spread. .What happy gatherings of friends and relatives. What delightful memories linger there. Oh, don't sell the home !

In our great West there is hardly a farm but what can be beautified and made homelike. You can build bulwarks of noble trees to shut out the fierce blasts of winter. Evergreens and deciduous trees are waiting to come and defend you.

The choicest shrubs and flowers with continuous bloom are ready to spring up at your beck and fill you with cheer and gladness.

On the farm there is too often a lack of conveniences and comforts. The woman should have a good toilet room as well as her city cousin. The inconveniences to which delicate women are subjected in going to out houses in the piercing cold and through the deep snows might be classed among the martyrdoms. I had seen so much of this that when I built I made up my mind to have a good bath and toilet room first and then build a house around it. I cannot see why there should be such cruel neglect and indifference on the farm. I know a Western ranch where the wife is a noble, motherly woman and she has daughters that are teachers and the husband and father has never even built a small out house for them.

The expense of home comforts is not great. There is little trouble in having a cesspool at a safe distance, and as far as sanitary conditions are concerned a cesspool is no more dangerous to health than a common vault.

If possible, water should be conveyed into the house. The windmill can do this much better than the wife. The woman has a hard time at best — often without help, and she should have every possible convenience.

THE BOYS^ ROOM

Should be large and cheery and well stocked with books and papers. I know a man who has trouble with his boys. He owns a half section of land and is well off. He built a store to rent in a new town with his surplus money. But the boys had to grope their way to bed on all fours in the garret of a dilapidated sod house. Treat a boy like a dog and he will be one. Give him a good room and have him take care of it and he will be a gentleman instead of a rowdy.

If possible he should have a shop with a good set of tools ; not cheap gift affairs, but the best that money can buy.

The best room is none too good for the family. They are as good as the company you receive. The largest and best room is often kept for the guest. This may be occupied a dozen times in a year and the father and mother sleep in a small room. They need the best and largest, and a guest can take up with a smaller one. Better for him to stand it a short time than that the Aveary ones should use it all the while. Have a good, roomy kitchen with every possible convenience.

Chapter II. The Discovery Of Beautieul Gems

If in the gold mine in the front yard there should also be found a mine of gems what new zest would be given to research.

Yet it is a fact that we are on the verge of the unknown. Behind a thin veil the good Father has rich treasures in store for us and we can fold the curtains aside and take possession.

A man finds a precious diamond like the Kohinoor or the ^^Mountain of Light'' or ^^Star of the South'' and his fortune is made.

Ancient rulers reveled in the possession of precious stones. When Persia was invaded by the Mahometans they captured a splendid carpet which was one of the marvels of the world. It was 450 feet long and 90 feet wide, and had a border worked in with precious stones to represent a garden of all kinds of lovely flowers. The leaves were formed of emeralds and other green colored stones, while the buds and blossoms were composed of pearls, rubies, sapphires and other gems of immense value. Along with this was a robe of state thickly embroidered with the most beautiful rubies and pearls. That splendid carpet was an imitation of a garden of flowers. True the fabric of woven gems would last tlie longest, yet there was only one of it, while millions of people can have carpets of bloom radiant with a thousand forms emitting their fragrance and displaying their loveliness.

There was the peacock throne. A marvelous collection of jewels — fashioned into the form of that resplendent bird. It was worth thirty millions of dollars. It was a most magnificent bouquet of splendor; yet today the poor man or woman on intimate terms with earth and nature can have collections of forms, tints and colorings which might vie in appearance even with this masterpiece of human skill.

Let some Emperor have his '"Great Mogul" or ^'Orloif Diamond." But a hundred thousand people can have their gTcat, splendid Festiva Maximas and La Tulipes — gems of the floral world. Men have gone mad over the discovery of rich and precious stones. But there are gems of lustrous beauty among flowers — gems which do not center all their value in a single object.

I stood by the original Concord grape in that historic town and said: ''You grand Old Mother! You know not the trainload after trainload of fruit and plants which have gone forth from your branches, adding millions to the nation's wealth."

Gideon discovered a gem in the Wealthy apple. What a marvel ! l^o jewel uncovered in earth's richest mines can compare with it. Go to any of our Western states and you find this fruit growing by ship loads.

Somewhere in the unknown are other frnits — luscious, hardy and prolific, which will yet add millions to the nation's wealth.

'No one can take out a patent on these discoveries. The wide field is open to all. You can be an independent mine owner, and perhaps some quiet farmer may yet capture the prize for which all the E^orthwest is longing.

In floriculture what marvelous changes have been made in roses. The single rose is the product of I^ature. The double rose is the product of I^ature and art. What marvelous crosses are being made. One day in the East I rode on the cars with the noted Jackson Dawson, of the Arnold Arboretum, and he was taking eight hybrids of the Wichuriana of Japan. There is no limit here, and a wide awake boy or girl can carry on the process.

What improvements in lilacs, spira3as, and syringas, or Philadelphus. This same D'awson showed me a syringa of marvelous beauty and enormous flowers — one of his own creations.

Some one crossed the delicate little Thunbergi Spira3a with the Multiflora and that gave us the Arguta, which blooms with the tulips — a snowdrift of white — the earliest of all. And it has such persistent foliage that in the autumn it is like a flower garden of itself with its rich tints and marvelous colorings ; thus making an attractive display at each end of the season.

Lilacs are all the while being produced from seed. Plant the choicest kinds with the rich diversity of bloom and foliage and from the seed you will have some surprises of loveliness.

How much has been achieved by the wizards of horticulture who have opened new gates to let us look on broad empires of possibilities. And how much is being done all the while along the lines of private research.

Take the carnation. Only a few years ago it was a humble flower and now a glory fit for the dwellings of kings. And the limit of its possibilities has not yet been reached.

When Rosenfield gave the world his Floral Treasure, and Golden Harvest, he discovered gems whose beauty, soon to be increased to millions, will make glad the homes of the great ISTorthwest and cheer up the prairie desolations.

Father Terry, of Iowa, has given us over one hundred paeonies. Among them the Yictor, whi'ch is victorious, and Excelsior which excels, and Morning Star with delicate rays radiating from a heart of gold. What a troup of loveliness to rise up and bless the old man as he journeys to the land of the setting sun.

And see what gTeat work he has accomplished in bringing cheer to so many homes. It is said he is a benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow in the place of one. What shall we say of the man who in the place of none shall clothe the brown earth with a carpet of beauty on which the soul can feast — who discovers gems that will increase to millions ? There is alto'uism here. It is like an almoner handing out the richest gifts of Providence to a needy world.

What I want to do is to awaken a zeal in your hearts, so that you can go out and possess these new fields. There is a charm in taking the flowers already established and propagating them, thus clothing barrenness with beauty. But we have reached that point where the ordinary man or woman, boy or girl, can add to the treasures of the world and the delights of society.

A quiet woman in Indiana a few years ago planted some paeony seeds. One plant she named, on my advice. General Lawton. It had a splendid large flower. She sold it for $100. Another, named for her departed husband, brought $150. Another of her creations — Walter Morgan — has a delicate flower of lovely fragrance, and of pure gold. There is no law which forbids research along these lines. No warranty deed on God's fields with signs up, "'No trespassing here."

What wonder, when I see these things, that the fascination comes over me and I am planting many pounds of seeds of choicest paeonies and am willing to forego the delights of heaven a few years to see the new forms of loveliness they will unfold.