The farmstead: The making of the rural home and the lay-out of the farm / (5th edition)

by Isaac Phillips Roberts

With the increase of appliances, and with the added social and intellectual demands, country as well as city life is becoming more complicated and exacting. The housewife, whose physical strength is scarcely equal to the demands of housekeeping and child-bearing, must develop her intelligence and whet her judgment. She must find easier and wiser ways of doing the necessary drudgery, and make brains do an increasing part of the labor formerly accomplished by muscle.

CHAPTER XIV
THE HOME YARD

The yard, as well as the house, should be planned. It should be convenient, neat, handsome, restful. It will need planting with trees, shrubs, herbs and grass; but these things should not be scattered promiscuously over the place, for then they mean nothing. Every plant should have some relation to the general plan or design of the place.

The first thing to consider in the making of a fit setting for the house is to lay out the plan or design; the last thing is to select the particular kinds of plants to be used. The place should be a picture. It should be one thing, not many things. If the design is correct and the planting is well done, all parts will be in harmony and the place will appeal to one as a whole. If the bushes and trees are scattered promiscuously over the yard, then there is no central idea and the attention is fixed upon the details rather than upon the place. [Figs. 88] and [89] illustrate these contrasts.

The one central thought or idea in home grounds is the house. Therefore, make the house emphatic. Let it stand out boldly, as in [Fig. 89]. Keep the center of the place open. Do not clutter it with trees, flower beds and other distracting things.

Fig. 88. The common or nursery type of planting.

Fig. 89. The proper or pictorial type of planting.

If the house is to be made emphatic, give it a flanking. Plant trees or bushes, or both, on the sides. Back it up, also, with trees. If it sets in front of a natural wood or an orchard, the effect is better. If the country is bare and bald behind it, plant tall trees there.