Nothing so perfectly sets off a cottage, in external appearance, as the presence of plants and shrubbery around it. A large tree or two, by giving an air of protection, is always in place; and creeping vines, and climbing shrubs about the windows and porch, are in true character; while a few low-headed trees, of various kinds, together with some simple and hardy annual and other flowers--to which should always be added, near by, a small, well-tended kitchen garden--fill up the picture.
In the choice of what varieties should compose these ornaments, one can hardly be at a loss. Flanking the cottage, and near the kitchen garden, should be the fruit trees. The elm, maples, oak, and hickory, in all their varieties, black-walnut, butternut--the last all the better for its rich kernel--are every one appropriate for shade, as _large_ trees. The hop, morning-glory, running beans--all useful and ornamental as summer climbers; the clematis, bitter-sweet, ivy, any of the _climbing_ roses; the lilac, syringa, snow-ball, and the _standard_ roses; while marigolds, asters, pinks, the phloxes, peonies, and a few other of the thousand-and-one simple and charming annuals, biennials, and perennials, with now and then a gorgeous sunflower, flaunting in its broad glory, will fill up the catalogue. Rare and costly plants are not required, and indeed, are hardly in place in the grounds of an ordinary cottage, unless occupied by the professional gardener. They denote expense, which the laboring cottager cannot afford; and besides that, they detract from the simplicity of the life and purpose which not only the cottage itself, but everything around it, should express.
There is an affectation of _cottage_ building, with some people who, with a seeming humility, really aim at higher flights of style in living within them, than truth of either design or purpose will admit. But as such cases are more among villagers, and those temporarily retiring from the city for summer residence, the farm cottage has little to do with it. Still, such fancies are contagious, and we have occasionally seen the ambitious cottage, with its covert expression of humility, insinuating itself on to the farm, and for the farmer's own family occupation, too, which at once spoiled, to the eye, the _substantial reality_ of the whole establishment. A farmer should discard all such things as _ornamental_ cottages. They do not belong to the farm. If he live in a cottage himself, it should be a _plain_ one; yet it may be very substantial and well finished--something showing that he means either to be content in it, in its character of plainness, or that he intends, at a future day, to build something better--when this may serve for the habitation of one of his laborers.