This word to most of us possesses deep significance. With what reverence do we look back to the home of our childhood, now embalmed in memory as our heart's dearest treasure ! Not a home, do we mean, surrounded with all the luxuries of life, but one, even though humble, where there was "plenty and to spare." The old home, with father and mother and its stores of plenty, did not quite content us; we felt a spirit of unrest taking possession of us. Then we were unable to appreciate our blessings as we do now, looking back to them in the light of a riper experience. Points and objects that failed to attract us then, are now so many shrines at which we do homage, and as we achieve success or meet failure, our minds revert to the old home with its precious memories.

Our ideal home is not like the home of our youth; it is one that is to meet the wants, as far as our means will allow, of our own households, enabling us to enjoy that comfort and independence that can never be appreciated by those whose thought is of to-day, and who let the morrow care for itself.

To our mind there is nothing more ennobling than the united efforts of young married people directed to the acquisition of a home. They may be, as the majority are, possessed of limited means; but good health, temperate habits, and frugal saving of earnings, though small, will enable them to purchase or build a cottage and adorn it. There, when the cares of the day are over, beneath their "own vine and fig-tree," they can recount the successes of the past, and plan for the future.

The work done by our own hands, and the money our own sweat has earned, are to us a source of peculiar pride and satisfaction. So a home, earned by the concerted efforts of husband and wife, will possess a charm far greater than if they come in possession of it by heirship. More precious because of its association with their struggles with necessity.

The great trouble is that the young people of to-day are not willing to commence so far down the scale; they cannot be content with such an humble beginning as their parents made; and instead of commencing a home soon after marriage, they rent and furnish a house in extravagant style, often spending enough in furnishing to pay for a home of comfortable size. All this, we remark, is done with the plea of economy. They promise to build when they have means enough. We who have traveled the path so often, can see their mistake. A false pride has prevented them from accepting humbler quarters, from whence in a few years they might have gone out to wealth and even opulence.

How many instances have we met of those who have rented and fitted up the house of a close landlord, hoping at no distant day to be able to pay for a home of their own; but month after month, and year after year, the rent bill absorbs the savings, until they have paid out as much as would be required either to pay for a house, or secure one in such a manner as to be gradually brought into their full possession by frugal savings and payments.

In our opening chapter we cannot forbear offering a word of encouragement to persons of small means seeking homes, for we know well, from actual experience, what small earnings, carefully saved and judiciously expended, will do in this direction.

One need not have too much fear in incurring' a safe amount of debt on a home when there is a constant saving going on, and a gradual reduction of the principal can be made. We wish, however, to caution all against one serious mistake, - many times the plan of the house and cost of the same are not definite enough, and the home that was intended, under no circumstances, to exceed in cost the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, is found very incomplete when that amount has been expended, and it is found, when too late, that the cost will be fully two thousand dollars.

It is then found that the loan, which could have been secured on the premises for the first amount named, at a low rate of interest with easy terms of payment, will be hard to obtain for the larger amount; and should the loan be secured for this last amount, it will necessarily be at a higher rate of interest; hence the risk of paying off the debt is greater.

Misfortune, dull business, or sickness, may curtail the earnings, and the result will be inability to meet payments of interest and on principal, and the ghost of foreclosure of mortgage haunts the homestead. After a struggle, perhaps of many years, the unfortunate owner is obliged to give up, and with wife and family seek more humble quarters with monthly rental.

We present this picture to place all of small means on their guard. Be sure not to build too large; know what the cost to complete the home will be before commencing. It is better to live in a rented house than to go through the anxiety, annoyance, trouble, and disappointment of almost paying for a home and then seeing it taken from you, your labor lost, and your earnings swept away.

This state of affairs need not occur, except in rare instances, if anything like a reasonable amount of forethought and good judgment is exercised. The usual way, and the best way, for people of only moderate means to build anything of much cost, and be sure of a knowledge of the sum total when completed, is to contract the work for a given sum; and if for a house of not much pretension, the better way is to have a plan, if possible, from some architect of known ability and of a good reputation. He can embody in his plan even every little thing about a house, from a sliding door down to a set of drawers in the kitchen pantry, or cleats and shelves in the closets, thus obviating the risk of the builder's never-failing desire to run up a heavy bill of "extras" on the completion of the job, as too many of them try to make it larger than it should be for the amount of work done.

In the larger cities and towns where the services of a good architect can be had, it is always advisable to employ one, at least to do the planning and preparing of the contract and specifications for letting the work, if not for superintending. A good set of plans and specifications, carefully executed, can be followed even by a man comparatively unaccustomed to such things, with sufficient precision to discover any great variation the contractor might try to make in the building. But for buildings of much pretension there is no better evidence of the benefits of a good plan and super-intendency of the work from day to day as it progresses, by a competent architect, than the fact that in large cities there are men known as "building speculators," who do not build without definite plans and usually superintendents. But for the majority who will read this book, and whom we hope in a measure to assist, in the smaller cities and towns, villages and country homes, it is not always easy to get the professional assistance required, and for their benefit we wish to offer a few suggestions, before proceeding to the discussion of other matters and the description of the accompanying plates.