thful and comfortable home, we next approach the important

e to means of higher moral growth; it yet holds a place of great significance among the influences which make home happy and attractive, which give it a constant

when they get money enough, they intend to have them so, but at present they are too poor, an

, who had spent upon them, outside or in, an amount of money which did not produce either be

le, and which take up a good deal of money. We would venture to say that we could buy the chromo of Bierstadt's "Sunset in the Yosemite Valley," and four others like it, for half the sum that we have sometimes seen laid out on a very ugly, nar

bald and bare, when a sufficient sum of money had been expended on one ar

e housewife, "I must at least have a parlor-carpet. We must get that to begin with, and other things as we go on." She goes to a store to look at carpets. The clerks are smiling and obliging, and sweetly complacent. The storekeeper, perhaps, is a neighbor or a friend, and after ex

is Brussels, and so cheap! And as she hesitates, her friend tells her that she will find it "

she comes home, she will find that she has spent, we will say eighty dollars, for a very homely carpet whose greatest merit it is an affliction to remember-namely, that it will outlast

nd light up brilliantly in the evening. Thirteen rolls of good satin paper, at thirty-seven cents a roll, expends four dollars and eighty-one cents. A maroon bordering, made in imitation of the choicest French style, which can not

not good economy, because it wears out so soon. We humbly submit that it is precisely the thing for a parlor, which is reserved for the reception-room of friends, and for our own dressed lei

where a plain straw matting has done service for seven years. That parlor is in a city, and these friends are in the habit of receiving visits from people who live upon velvet a

ine that on one side of the fireplace there be, as there is often, a recess about six feet long and three feet deep. Fill this recess with a rough frame with four stout legs, one foot high, and upon the top of the frame have an elastic rack of slats. Make a mattress for this, or, if you wish to avoid that trouble, you can get a n

to have one or two feather pillows that you can spare for the purpose, shake them down into a square shape and cover them with the same print, an

ation: F

windows, which are to be embellished with white muslin curtains. The cornices to your windows can be simply strips of wood covered with paper to match the bordering of your room, and the lambrequins, made of chintz like

d, you can ornament them with hems an inch in width, in which insert a strip of gingham or chambray of the same color as your

. White curtains really create a room out of nothing. No matter how coarse the muslin, so it be white

lin can be bought at th

six yards

ottoman frames, as described in Chapter II; stuff the tops with just t

ation: F

nd your room already looks furnished. If you have in the house any broken-down arm-chair, reposing in the oblivion of the garret, draw it out-drive a nail here and there to hold

ar, and, being put into uniform with the gener

e-table is made for. If you have in your house a good, broad, generous-topped table, take it, cover it with an ample cloth of green broadcloth. Such a cover, two and a half yards square, of fine green broadcloth, figured with black and with a pattern-border of grape-leaves, has been bought for ten dollars. In a room we wot of, it covers a cheap pine table, such as you may buy for four or five dollars any day; but y

h for fifteen dollars or less, and a family of five or six may all sit and work, or read, or wr

your parlor the f

,....................

.....................

h,...................

ows,.................

glish chintz, at 25 c

h,...................

which we set down as the price of the cheap, ugly Brussels carpet, we have our whole room paper

in regard to the sele

ing little cab

k Maker" for.........

refoot Boy,".........

d Gentians,".........

n the Yo Semite Valle

to suit the picture. Nail on the edge a rustic frame made of branches of hard, seasoned wood, and garnish the corners with some pretty device; such, for instance, as a cluster of acorns; or, in place of the branches of trees, fasten on with glue small pine cones, with larger ones for corner ornaments. Or use the mosses of the wood or ocean shells for this purpose. It may be more convenient to get the mat or inner moulding from a framer, or have it made by your carpenter, with a groove behind to hold a glass. Here are also picture-frames of pretty effect, and very simply made. The one in Fig. 42 is made of ei

ration:

ration:

ration:

ration:

the buff paper, with its dark, narrow border; the green chintz repeated in the lounge, the ottomans, and lambrequins; the flowing, white curtains; the broad, generous centre-table, draped with its ample green cloth, will, when arr

or your draperies; or a blue room by using blue chintz. Let you

carpet, at $1.50 per yard, would be forty-five dollars; the difference between forty-five and fifteen dollars would furnish a room with pictures such

by laying down, in front of the fire, a large square of carpeting, say three breadths, four yards long. This covered t

our room, we still leave a margin for a picture, and

f the celebrated pictures of the world. And even this does not exhaust the resources of economical art; for there are few of the renowned statues, whether of antiquity or of modern times, that have not been accur

nt of thought, and stimulated-sometimes to efforts at artistic imitation, always to the eager and intelligent inquiry about the scenes, the places, the incidents represented. Just here, perhaps, we are met by some who grant all that

house need not be condemned to an absolute bareness. Not so long as the woods are full of beautiful ferns and mosses, while every swamp

and other purposes, and paint it. The holes in the bottom are a recommendation for its new service. If there are no holes, you must drill two or three

, such as you find in

rth cle

n from under fresh turf. Mix

hang over. This will need to be watered once or twice a week, and it will grow and thrive all summer long in a corner of your room. Should you

Tack bark and pine-cones and moss upon the outside of it, drill holes and pass wires through i

this kind, have been made to have an air so poetical and attractive th

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with stiff wire. Line this with a sheet of close moss, which appears green behind the wire net-work. Then you fill it with loose, spongy moss, such as you find in swamps, and plant therein great plumes of fern and various swamp-grasses; they will continu

om, year in and year out, will grow around pictures, and do almost any thing to oblige you that you can suggest to it. For instance, in a March number of Hearth and Home, [Footnote: A beautifully illustrated agricultural and family weekly paper, edited by Donald G. Mitchell(Ik Marvel) and Mrs. H. B. Stowe,] there is a picture of the most delightful library-

and around the window is the ivy, running from two boxes; and, in case the window has some sun, a Nasturtium may spread its bright blossoms among the leaves. Then, in the winter, when there is less sun, the Striped Spider-wor

d the ivy will seem to come from fairyland, and hang its verdure in all manner of pretty curves around the picture. It may then be trained to travel toward othe

ept wet by daily immersion, can be filled with flax-seed and suspended by a c

d across the bowl half in the water, will, in due time, make a beautiful verdant ornament. A large carrot, with the small

will hold earth or water for plan

heir bringing home material for this rustic work. Different colored twigs and sprays of trees, such as the bright scarlet of the dog-wood, the yellow of the willow, the black of the birch, and the silvery gray of the poplar, may be combined in fanciful net-work. For this sort of work,

ration:

sell all the way along from eighteen to fifty dollars, and are, like every

small sum. Such a case is a small glass closet over a well-drained box of soil. You make a Ward case on a small scale when you turn a tumbler over a plant. The glass keeps the temperature mois

hen line it with zinc, and you will have a sort of box or sink on legs. Now make a top of common window-glass such as you would get for a cucumber-frame; let it b

ation: F

the most elaborate ones of the shops. It was large, and roomy, and cheap. Common window-sash and glass are not dear, and any man

d. Then, as directed for the other basket, proceed with a layer of broken charcoal and pot-sherds for drainage, two inches deep, and prepare the soil as directed above, and add to it some pounded charco

filling

to grow. They are very particular in asserting their right to this yearly nap,

n your hands in the most reckless and shameless manner. If you make a Ward case in the spring, your ferns will grow beautifully in it all summer; and in the autu

of the plant's sleep has come, and that you must make the most of the leaves it now has, as you will not have a leaf more from it till its waking-up time in February or March. But we have succeeded, and you will succeed, in making a very charming and picturesque collection. You can make in your Ward case lovely li

and put into this Ward case, will come into bloom there a month

houstonia cerulia, and mingle them in with your mosses

erry, with its red plums. The berries swell and increase in the moist

conservatories. In getting your sod of trailing arbutus, remember that this plant forms its buds in the fall. You must,

also, that form their buds in the fall, a

; but as they all do well in moist, shady places, we reco

thoroughly drenched with water when the plants are first put in, it will after that need only to be watered about once a month, and t

oor garden will be an untold treasure. The glass defends the plant from the inexpedient intermeddling of little fingers; while the

mfort. It is, in fact, a fragment of the green woods brought in an