California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



tiously as a flower ; not to be thrust into not- 

 ice V)y hiivint; his snyiugs and doings repeated 

 in his presence, nor snubbed into silence und 

 conscious inferiority by being constantly re- 

 minded that "children should be sceu and 

 not heard." Hardly anything is moro essen- 

 tial in the management of children than the 

 tiudly ign(.>riug eye that does not notice too 

 much. I pity the child who is the centi'e of 

 a blindly doting or injuiticiously critical fam- 

 ily, whose every saying is repeated, every act 

 commented upon, and where, in consequence, 

 naturalness is imijossible. 



Polite Childeev. — " Thankyou, Ch.arlic," 

 said ilrs. Brown, as her little sou handed 

 her a jiaper he was requested to bring. 



"Thankyou, Bridget," said the little fel- 

 low a few hours after, as he received a glass 

 of water from his nurse. 



"Well, Mrs. Brown, you have the best 

 mannered children I ever saw," said a neigh- 

 bor. "I should be thankful if mine were as po- 

 lite to me as yours are to the servants. You 

 never speud half the time on your children's 

 clothes that I do, and yet every one notices 

 them, they are so well-behaved." 



" We always try to treat our children po- 

 litely," was the tpiiet reply. 



This was the whole secret. When I hear 

 parents grumbliug about the ill-manners of 

 their children I always wish to ask, "Have 

 you always treated them with politeness 'i" 



llauy parents who are polite and polished 

 in their manners toward the world at large 

 ai'e perfect boors inside the home circle. If 

 a stranger offer the slightest service he is 

 gratefully thanked ; but who ever remembers 

 to thus reward the little tireless feet that are 

 traveling all day long, up-stairs and down, on 

 countless errands for somebody ? It would be 

 policy for parents to treat their children po- 

 litely for the sake of obtaining more cheerful 

 obedience, if for no other reason. The cost- 

 less use of an " If you please " and " I thank 

 you," now and then, will go far to lighten an 

 otherwise burdensome task. Say to your son, 

 "John, shut that door," and with a scowl, 

 he will move slowly towards it and shut it 

 with a bang. The next time say, "John, 

 will you shut the door, please ?" and he will 

 hasten with a smUe to do your bidding. 



Putting Childkento Bed.— We have seldom 

 seen anything more impressively appropriate 

 than the suggestion made by an exchange rel- 

 ative to the manner of putting children to 

 bed without rejjroof for any of that day's 

 sins of omission or commission. Take any 

 time but bed-time for that. If you ever 

 heard a little creature sighing and sobbiug in 

 its sleeji, you could never do this. Seal their 

 closing eyes with a kiss and a blessing. The 

 time will come when, all too soon, they will 

 hvy their heads upon the piUow lacking both. 

 Let them then, at least, have this sweet mem- 

 ory of a happy childhood, of which no future 

 sorrow or trouble can rob them. Give them 

 their rosy youth. Nor need this involve wild 

 license. 'The judicious parent will, not so 

 mistake my meaning. If you have ever met 

 the man or the woman whose eyes have sud- 

 denly filled when a little child has crept 

 trustingly to its mother's breast, you may 

 have seen one in whose childhood's home 

 "dignity" and "severity" stood where love 

 and pity should have been. Too much indul- 

 gence has ruined thousands of children — too 

 much love not one. 



Kememeer. — Whatever yon wish your chil- 

 dren to be, be it yourself. If you wish them 

 to be happy, healthy, sober, truthful, affec- 

 tionate, honest and moral, be yourself all 

 these. If you wish them to be lazy, and 

 sulky, and liars, and thieves, and drunkards, 

 and swearers, be yourself all those. As the 

 old cock crows, the young one learns. You 

 will remember who said, "Train up a child 

 in the way he should go, and when he is old 

 he will not depart from it." And you may, 

 as a general rule, as soon expect to gather 

 grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, as to 

 get good, healthy, happy children from dis- 

 eased, lazy and wicked parents. 



% 



Scolding.— What good does scolding do ? 

 It does no one the least service, but it creates 

 infinite mischief. Scolded servants never do 

 their work well. Their tempers are roused, 

 as well as the mistress's, and they very often 

 fail in their duties at awkward moments, sim- 

 ply to spite her and to "serve her out." 

 Very wrong in them, doubtless ; but human 

 nature is trail, and service is a trying institu- 

 tion. It does no good to husband or child, 

 for it simply empties the house of both as 

 soon as possible. — N. Y. Observer. 



^im\\ |5vcc(lcv. 



utility Above Fancy in Breeding. 



# 



F wo were to judge of the character of our 



stock breeders by the prices occasionally 

 paid for fancy animals under the influ- 

 ence of unusual competition or wild ex- 

 citement, as at the New York Mills sale of 

 last year, for instance, we should undoubtedly 

 do great injustice to the average American 

 breeder, who is, after all, a thorough ntilita- 

 rian, and knows that real merit will win, in 

 the long run, in this, as in every other kind 

 of business. 



Mr. J. H. Pickerell, of Illinois, the newly 

 elected President of the American Association 

 of Short-horn Breeders, is one of the right 

 kind of men to bring the ideas and practices 

 of the Short-horn breeders down to a solid, 

 hard pan foundation, if they are in need of 

 such training, as it has certainly seemed to us 

 that they have been for a year or two past. 

 His lecture, delivered at the annual conven- 

 tion of Short-horn breeders at Springfield, 

 Hi., last January, is one of the most sound 

 and sensible iiroductions we have read on the 

 subject of breeding for a long while, and we 

 commend it to the attention of breeders every- 

 where. 



No one who breeds Short-horns intelligent- 

 ly, either with an eye to profit or pleasure, 

 but has his fancy, both as regards the real, 

 living, moving animal, and the j)aper Short- 

 horn, with pure ancestry pedigreed. Then 

 there are particular fancies in regard to the 

 horns, their size, shape, length, color; points 

 in or points out, points up or points down ; 

 fancies about fhe nose, its shape, size and 

 color — tints that the skin should be; size of 

 the head, length of the face, width, etc. Then 

 the jaws, eyes, ears, throat-latch, etc. The 

 same in regard to long necks and short necks, 

 thick necks and slim necks, chubby necks, 

 etc. ; shoulders set right or obliquely, thick or 

 thin, heavy or light, rough or smooth, points 

 bare or covered ; brisket prominent, smooth, 

 wide, narrow, low down, plump or flabby; 

 crops thick or thin, sharp, high or low; thick 

 or light "through the heart," long ribs or 

 short ribs, high sprung or low sprung, ribbed 

 up close or long coupled; thick loins or light 

 ones; same of hips and flanks (fore and aft); 

 rumps up or down, square or peaked, long or 

 short, smooth or straight; quarters long or 

 short, square or cut in; twist full or straight, 

 twisted in or twisted out; hind legs long or 

 short; bones fine or coarse, straight or crook- 

 ed; tail fine or coarse, long or short, with the 

 bush do.; white or red; hide thick or thin, 

 mellow or hard, yellow or white; hair coarse 

 or fine, long or short, thin or "full of hair." 



Then the color, from plain white to fancy 

 red, with all the tints and shades imaginable 

 between the two. Then the general "make- 

 up" and finish, as a whole; style and carriage. 

 Fancies about pedigree, whether of this stain 

 {or family) or of that; whether one cross, six 

 crosses, or sixteen, makes a thoroughbred, or 

 a full-blooded; wether, if the dam runs to a 



certain starting point, with the sire of some 

 other blood, makes it more of that family or 

 vice versa; or whether, if the pedigree is right, 

 it makes any difference about the animal at 

 all. Then there are prejudices in favor of 

 and against everything named, and many 

 more, perhaps. How far do these things 

 bear out, for or against, the real or useful, to 

 their advantage or disadvantge'i" That's tLe 

 question. 



The intrinsic value of the horns, is, per- 

 haps, about twenty cents — worth but little to 

 the animal for protection, as a "muley" fre- 

 quently masters the whole herd. Their real 

 value is as an index to the breeder, which is 

 very frequently — nearly always by our award- 

 ing committees at our fairs — taken the wrong 

 way. As many a good animal has been dis- 

 carded, thrown out, or sacrificed, for having 

 a heavy horn — placed behind an animal hav- 

 ing a delicate, steer horn — when, perhaps, in 

 real merit the first had hundreds of pounds 

 of meat in valvable parts more than th<! other. 

 While we fancy horns of a peculiar kinil, we 

 must be careful not to let our prejudices run 

 awiiy with other merits of real value, for 

 while a heavy, coarse horn may not be an ad- 

 vantage, or desirable, a light, delicate one, 

 other things being equal, should always bo 

 objected to in a bull. The nose of itself is 

 valueless when it comes to the block. All 

 admit that the most fashionably bred and 

 fancy pedigi'ees occasionally show black 

 noses. 



In regard to the color, it has been said that 

 the fashionable color of to-daj- was once an 

 actual objection. Then the color does not 

 establish the blood; nor is there any positive 

 proof that the quality of the meat is gov- 

 erned by it. May we not well ask. Is there 

 anything more than prejudice in the color of 

 the nose? Yet fancy sacrifices ni.any good 

 animals on account, not only of a black, but 

 of a smutty nose. The head of a dead ani- 

 mal, of itself, is worth but little, and like the 

 horn, is more of an index to the living animal 

 than real worth. It is true, in weight, it 

 amounts t*6omething more than it comes to 

 at the lowest price paid for beef. Then after 

 the true value — which, like the horn, is often 

 misconstrued — in the living animal is consid- 

 ered, we should not let a fancied defect (of 

 course I do not allude to a malformation, 

 which should always be discarded in breeding 

 animals) prejudice us too much against other 

 real merits of the animal. The throat-latch 

 (to use a common expression) is required by 

 fancy to be hght and slim, and for a little 

 ehubbiness the whole animal is made to take 

 a back position, while it is very generally a 

 good index to a good feeder and a thick ani- 

 mal. It seems curious that our half-fledged 

 Short-horn fanciers generally see more to 

 condemn than to commend, very frequently 

 sacrificing the real merits for a few fancy 

 points. Fancy puts great stress on a long, 

 slim neck — one that can hold a high head. 

 Reality says that a neck that is long enough 

 to reach to the ground to drink and eat is 

 long enough. Unnecessary weight is objec- 

 tionable, because it is low priced beef, and 

 the less of it the better, other things being 

 equal. In our prejudice we forget that a 

 thick, short neck sometimes weighs less than 

 a long, slim one, besides being generally car- 

 ried by a body that corresponds, especially as 

 to thickness. Fancy, perhaps looks over 

 more and carries it further into the ranks 

 of breeders in the shoulders than most any 

 part of the animal. 



In our prejudices against minor defects we 

 frequently overlook more real merits and pass 

 them by, "letting light, sharp tops, bare points 

 and coarseness generally in the shoulder, take 

 the lead. Really, there is about as much 

 difi'erence in the value of the shoulder by 

 the way it is formed, as any other portion; a 

 poor, thin, coarse shoulder is a loss always in 

 point of real value, behind a good or smooth 

 one, that nearly approaches, in point of value 

 the higher-priced beef. Here, too, we get 

 great weight. Consequently, the shoulder 

 should be considered a more weighty matter 



