old times. Well, if people can afford to pay so high for their eatables, so bo it ; some of us 

 uuist raise our own, or go without our truck. But I want to know what business anybody 

 has to " live in the country" who has no kind of knowledge of country things ? 



My illustrations must take the conversational strain ; the following lucid talk actually 

 occurred in the parlor of one of my new neighbors, last evening, and the provoking jjart of 

 it was, the interlocutors never appealed to me for information ; me, who had lived all my 

 life in the country ! I was voted an ignoramus, because I knew nothing of silks or Irish 

 linens. But, to our evening conversation. 



First Lady. " Oh! Mrs. Firkin, I'm going to keep bees !" 



Second Lady. " Are you, indeed ! I should like to make honey, myself ; but where do 

 you get bees ?" 



First I^ady. " Why, just as you get birds. The carpenter was here to-day, making wren 

 boxes, and I got him to make me a pair of bee-hives, and a shelf just under the bay-window. 

 Won't it be nice ?" 



Second Lady. " Do the bees come and take possession like the bluebirds and wrens ?" 



First Lady. " I expect so ; don't you know ?" 



Husband. " My dear wife ! you have made a great mistake. Bees sicarm, and have to 

 be carefully hived. You might wait a century for a swarm to take possession. You ourjht 

 not, my love, to attempt things you don't understand. This is the fourth or fifth time you 

 have — " 



First Lady. " Do be quiet ! I don't believe you know anything about it !" 



Tliird Lady. " Oh! how charming it is to have a good, large garden. Our man has been 

 planting Lima beans, and has scoured the whole country for poles ! I do believe the fellow 

 has been away a whole week getting poles !" 



Note. — I had been looking into this " fellow's" gardening, and know it to be a fact, that 

 he has staked morning glories that came up all over the ground, ami, being vines, he thought 

 they were Lima beans ! Most of the time he was away for the poles, he was loitering at the 

 tavern. 



Fourth Lady. " Well, I declare, I'm almost sick of this gardening. Last year, we ordered 

 a large quantity of early beets cultivated, and, when they came up, they were all sun- 

 flowers ! Our man was cheated into buying six pounds of sunflower seeds, for beets !" 



Fourth Lady^s Husband. " You forget, my dear, that you bi'ought them home, after a day's 

 shopping, yourself ; and — " 



Fifth Lady. "I should be well contented to live here all the year round, for the sake of 

 having a cow. But, do you know, the calf takes all the milk !" 



First Lady. " Oh dear ! Why, how old is the calf ?" 



Fifth Lady. " Only eight months ! We never get a drop of milk." 



Guffaw from poor me ! " Oh ! oh ! ! oh ! ! !" and I am voted A Great Bore. 



The Three Crop System. — Tlie Boston Transcript gives so intelligible an account of Mr. 

 Simpson's mode of obtaining three crops of grapes in two years, that we copy it for the 

 information of our readers. 



" Mr. Simpson states, as the foundation of his theory, the following principles : — 



1. To perfectly ripen the wood, leaf, and bud. 



2. To secure a thorough resting of the vine, by withholding moisture from the roots ; and 



3. To keep up a brisk root action throughout the growth of the crop. 



By imitating the dry season of tropical countries, he effects the ripening of the wood, and 

 the fall of the leaves of the vines that have produced his early spring crop, and the vines 

 are then laid down to rest until the period of three or four months, the season of rest 

 have passed, when they are again set up, and encouraged to bearing. 



