California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



the same text books, varying them according 

 to their natural aptitudes, both alike being 

 held to a high standard of scholarship. Thus 

 will girls be titted for marriage to intelligent 

 men, with whom they may realize all those 

 delights and advantages which spring from 

 the purest friendship and the warmest love. 

 Thus may they be qualified to be the mothers 

 and teachers of a race of superior men and 

 women. Thus may they enjoy, as they pass 

 through life, the infinite provisions every- 

 where around them for culture and for happi- 

 ness. 



The lives of many women in so-called easy 

 circumstances are perfectly pitiful. Lacking 

 early and liberal culture, they are easily fet- 

 tered by the dull routine of household and 

 nursery duties, from which it is almost im- 

 possible that they should lift themselves, or 

 bo lifted by their husband or anybody else. 

 Had they once swept on free and easy wing 

 through the heaven of high literature of art 

 or of science, a new book, fine picture, a fresh 

 discovery, would be as an open door from 

 their cage, through which for a brief space 

 they could tly to the upper realms of thought 

 and enjoyment, and leave dull care behind. 

 With what freshness and spirit would they 

 return to their duty again! 



It is true that certain plants flourish best in 

 certain soils, but in compounding the soil of 

 our flower beds, we take it for granted that 

 though a dozen different varieties of seed are 

 planted in the same bed, each will appropri- 

 ate to itself only those elements suited to its 

 growth. Our care is that what each needs 

 shall not be wanting, and we trust to the in- 

 stinct of the plant to reject that which is hurt- 

 ful. 



In like manner we would have our daugh- 

 ters possess every advantage for the most 

 varied and liberal culture, trusting that health- 

 ful and normal natures will appropriate those 

 elements suited to their various idiosyucracies 

 and reject everythind that ministers to irreg- 

 ular and abnormal growth. — Tlie Hcience of 

 JlecUlh. 



Faemeks cannot occupy a little spare time 

 better, or more profitably, than in reviewing 

 their operations during the last year. Every 

 year has its lessons, and experience is the 

 best of instructors for those who have ears to 

 hear. It is true that the interferences of a 

 Higher Power are more perceptibly felt and 

 have more immediate effects in the profession 

 of the farmer than in any other. Kain and 

 drouth, cold and heat, insects and blight, 

 storm and sunshine, bring with them their 

 blessings and their calamities; and these come 

 alike on all. The farmer cannot feel respon- 

 sible for a "bad year." But he can look 

 back and see where he has failed, either in 

 the exorcise of his industry or his judgment, 

 and lay a lessor for the year upon which he 

 has just entered, and this retrospect with a 

 view to correct errors in the future is a chai"- 

 acteristic of all successful farmers. 



A KoYAX Marriage. — When two young peo- 

 ple start out in life together with nothing but 

 a determination to succeed, avoiding the in- 

 vasion of each other's idiosyncrasies, not car- 

 rying the candle near the gunpowder, but 

 sympathetic wiih each other's employment, 

 willing to live on small means till they get 

 large facilities, paying as they go, taking life 

 here as a discipline, with four eyes watching 

 its pearls, and four hands fighting its battles 

 — whatever others may say or do, that is a 

 royal marriage. It is so set down in the 

 heavenly archives, and the orange blossoms 

 shall wither on neither side the grave. 



Parasites. — It is common to note that each 

 species of animal has its own parasites, which 

 can exist only ui)on creatures which have 

 more or less kinship with their host. Thus 

 the attcarix mynUv.r, which torments the domes- 

 tic cat, is found iu all species of filis, while 

 the fox, so closely resembling the worlf or the 

 dog. is never troubled with the tiviiiu tiviuila, 

 common in the last mentioned animal. 



NOTES OF TRAVEL. 



BY MBS. C. F. YOUNG, M. D. 



'^VV'HIS sixteenth day of November, in Con- 

 tra Costa county, the hills are delicately 



% 



tinged with the green of Spring grasses. 

 ' The summer-fallowed ground contrasts 

 finely with tints of color that are at this 

 hour reflected on the clouds — not in pink, or 

 blue, or amber, but a combination of all, by 

 degrees softly shading down to the sky line of 

 a rosy sunset, and purple mists suggestive of 

 trojiical lands not far away. Indeed, within 

 ten miles, to-day, one can find the 



ORANGE, lemon AND BANANNA 



growing in the open air. A profusion of 

 flowers that, east of the Eocky Mountains, 

 would be found only iu the conservatories of 

 the wealthy, or the hot-houses of professional 

 gardeners, bud and bloom on the porches and 

 by the garden walks of this workingman's 

 home, receiving only the modicum of care 

 given by children and a feeble woman. Mea- 

 dow larks have filled the whole day, since 

 earliest dawn, with music. A pair of them 

 are now gathering supper under a rose tree 

 within twenty feet of our open window. 



Yesterday we passed over thirty miles of 

 country roads. We saw many fields of early 

 sown summer-fallowed and volunteer wheat 

 evenly seeded and growing finely. People 

 were sowing grain, others looking after the 

 squirrels, many others rushing ahead with the 

 plowing — gang plows, two, four, and six- 

 horse. Query : Why cannot women and girls 

 manage ^ang plows, and put in grain, thus 

 learning how to enter into the care and daily 

 hopes of the farmer, as well as the profits of 

 the crop? One of the prettiest fields of oats 

 we have ever seen was put in by a fourteen- 

 year-old girl —plowing, seeding, reaping, and 

 taking care of the, team also. A sulky plow 

 and improved machinery, and hearty encour- 

 agement, were hers. She could make bread 

 snd sew nicely; sing and play sacred music. 

 Did it hurt her to know how to manage a crop 

 or have an interest in the details of farm 

 work'? 



the contrast. 



We have seen this week a father at work in 

 the mines while one hundred and sixty acres 

 of hill and interval lands and two acres of 

 orchard were neglected. The daughter, in 

 this case, is in the city seeking work; her hus- 

 band, intemperate; her mother, pining over 

 "the might have beens" and hoping the 

 " Lord will next time give her daughter a 

 good husband." Chickens were in the house; 

 old rags about the door-step; the hay not 

 stacked or sheltered. Depend upon it, the 

 self-respecting, tired, ambitious women are 

 best help-iueets and housekeepers. 



Walking through the garden wo asked, 

 "Can you uot prune these young trees 'f 



" No," they scornfully replied; 

 women's work is in the house, 

 the strong-minded kind!" 



Verily not, and no prospect of any strength 

 of character being imparted to the children 

 born in the house. 



The cows were yet in the coral, hungry and 

 thin. " We cmly strij) thciii a little tor the 

 children. It's cheaper to buy than to make 

 butter." 



' we think 

 We are not 



We thought we could see how milk and but- 

 ter and fruit, with a wind-mill to lift water to 

 irrigate one acre of garden, might be made to 

 yield a good living, and how, little by little, 

 acres of nut-bearing trees might grow to pro- 

 ductiveness and beauty. Oranges and lemons 

 were possible—as possible on the sheltered 

 side of the Diablo hills as in any part of the 

 State, and even one tree would add very much 

 to the beauty of the home life. 



" Did you dry any fruit?" we asked, " or 

 can any?" 



" Oh, no. It don't pay to do such drudg- 

 ery when we can buy it so cheap." 



This is the rock upon which so many Cali- 

 fornia people break up. "Many a little makes 

 a mickle," say the Scotch people. It's 

 equally true that dimes make dollars. A 

 pound of apples dried nicely for winter use 

 saves twelve and a half cents at least, besides 

 the time and shoe leather required to go after 

 them. The home-made article can be free 

 from cores and skins: the store article may 

 have both. Bowls of grape jam — made with 

 only one pound of sugar to the pound — might 

 have been prepared (fifty for every family of 

 four), delicious and healthful, from fruit that 

 to-day is rotting on the vines. The fact is, 

 dear reader, 



IT DOBS NOT PAT 



to buy anything that you can make or save at 

 home in time and materials that otherwise 

 would be wasted. 



Then, there are whole reefs of rocks on 

 which to be shipwreck in the trifling story 

 papers — "given away if you will buy the flashy 

 cheap chromos." Morning, noon and night 

 some one may be seen reading the exciting 

 continued tales of impossible heroes and 

 heroines. Wherever this habit is formed, and 

 becomes a passion, jilows and harrows are 

 rusting, chickens roosting over the harness, 

 the stock is neglected, fences down, weeds 

 abounding, trees and vines scragly from ne- 

 glect, and the house, inside and out, in a 

 worse condition. These people are dyspeptics 

 in brain as well as stomachs. Exciting food 

 and unnatural stories please best. They do 

 not relish simple bread and baked apples, nor 

 pleasant and instructive farm journals. In- 

 finitely better for all parties to rise early and 

 work late; to scrub floors, and pull weeds,and 

 by hand, pare apples to dry. Better even to 

 walk five miles with a basket of eggs to sell, 

 than to fret and whine and dawdle over a 

 sickly story or a flashing fashion plate. The 

 first brings self-respect and propriety : the last, 

 discontent and ruin. 



The Scotch and Welsh people, who com- 

 mence very small, working by the day, in a 

 few years, have snug and thrifty homes. Our 

 countrymen and women, iu too many in- 

 stances, by their dislike of plain work, and 

 their foolish desire to be fashionable, sink 

 away from broad, fertile acres and the possi- 

 bilities of beautiful homes, and then blame 

 capital and Providence. 



To help correct this false pride, let each 

 reader of the Agriculturist try to persuade 

 one other person to subscribe for and read a 

 copy each mouth of the glad new year. Ed- 

 ited by a workingman, who, with his wife, has 

 solved the problem of making home attrac- 

 tive and beautiful with only the materials 

 within the reach of the humblest toiler, cer- 

 teinly, in the coming year, many lessous can 

 be given to assist those who wish to leani 

 and are willing to ti-y to improve their homes 

 and their hearts. 



AVhen a mau owns the land upon which the 

 labor of his life is expendiil, and which ho 

 exjiects to leave as a legacy to his children, his 

 interest in the political att'airs of the nation 

 must be vastly greater than when uo sense of 

 respousiliility exists, and when a system which 

 tends to weaken tlie citizen's iutercst in the 

 att'airs of slate threatens, it is time to meel it 

 with determined resistance. 



Bashfulness is often like the jjlaitiug on 

 sjJoons — when it wears ofl'it shows the brass. 



tl' 



