els that he has been paid a thousand times for setting it out.
When after years of endeavor in trying to keep his roadside neat and
clean and covered with greensward, he finds that his example is
having some influence on his neighbors, and that even the
road-menders begin to respect his efforts to improve the wayside, he
feels that he has been amply compensated for all his trouble and
care in his own increased enjoyment and in the increased enjoyment
he has been the means of giving to the public.

First impressions always have great influence upon our minds.
Nothing will give a traveller a poorer and meaner opinion of a town
and its inhabitants than dilapidated buildings surrounded by rubbish
and broken-down fences. When a traveller passes a house of this
character, he instinctively says to himself, "Some shiftless and
poverty-stricken family lives here;" but when he passes a well-kept
house with pleasant surroundings, he says, "This must be the abode
of intelligent and well-to-do people." He feels like stopping and
forming their acquaintance, for he is sure that their acquaintance
would be worth having. Our opinion of a person's character is always
more or less influenced by the clothes he wears and by the house in
which he lives. The surroundings of every home of intelligence and
tidiness should indicate that it is not the abode of the vulgar and
ignorant. Therefore every owner of a homestead should strive to make
it a cosey and pleasant home for himself and family. He should take
a just pride in keeping his buildings in good repair, well painted
and suitably arranged for the purposes of his business and a happy
and healthy home life. The surroundings should be made neat and
attractive, by the absence of rubbish, and the presence of green
grass and shade trees.

If he owns much land, he ought to be landscape gardener enough to
set out his fruit and shade trees and to lay out his fields in the
best way for convenience and scenic effect. He should also have
sufficient rural taste not to locate his barn and other
out-buildings in such a way as to shut off the best views from his
house. He ought also to have a general knowledge of the nature and
uses of trees and forests, and the necessity of their cultivation
for the good of himself and mankind at large.

Forest and shade trees greatly enhance the beauties of a country,
and no country can be beautiful in the highest degree without them.
If the green hills and mountai